I recently bought an 85 Vanagon that had a persistant noisy lifter problem. People could hear me driving down the street blocks away. In fact the previous owner spent hundreds of dollars trying to fix the problem...with no success. The strange thing was it seemed to dissapear and reappear on a random basis. I tried Marvels Magic Mystery Oil with no success. Then tried Valve Medic (which claims to stop the noise in five minutes). This made things worse! Now the noise was louder then ever, and never went away! So I resolved to replacing the lifters. Turns out the VW dealership wants $78.00 a lifter, outch!!!! In a measure of desperation, I tried Gunk Engine Flush ($1.99 at Track Auto). Just put the flush in the engine...leave idling for five minutes...and change the oil.
After the oil change I took the van for a drive. Drove a few minutes on the highway...the lifters stopped clicking! It has been two weeks now, and the engine runs smooth and quiet! Best $1.99 I ever spent! I would try this as a last resort. One thing I did not like about Gunk Engine Flush is it smells like kerosene and has a bunch of warnings about the engine being cold before usage, don't store open contents, etc. My guess is the Oil flush is highly flammable. The entire five minutes I was using the product, I sat there expecting my van to go up in flames. But hey, it worked :-)
Paul Borghese
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