Alfa Pages

[Stu]

Have a 1988 1.7QV, which developed noisy hydraulic tappets, (was definitely tappets not pumping up).

Pulled the tappets out and dissembled them, cleaned out carbon and gunk, has anyone else done this and what was the outcome on refitting to the motor, still noisy or what?

Don`t want to refit if the clean out won`t fix the problem, reluctant to by new parts either!!!

Any advise please
Stu

[GaryUK]

You can get airlocks in the hydraulic tappets, this can be cured by removing the sparkplugs and cranking the engine over for a few minutes. This can cure the problem, a bit late in the day for you but maybe useful for later reference.

[lesthegringo]

Here is a smelly but reasonably reliable way of making sure that the tappets are full of oil before fitting.

Heat a couple of litres of good clean new oil (GTX or similar is fine) in a pan to about 90 deg C, then drop the tappets carefully in the oil and let the oil cool. When you drop them in, the air inside the tappets will expand and be forced out, and then when they cool, as the oil / remaining air inside the tappets contracts it will draw oil into the internal oil ways. If you heat and cool again, it can get a bit more air out.

Once they are cool, you can fit them, but store them in oil until you actually put them in the heads.

Notes: Do not use the pans your mother-in-law gave you for a wedding present to do this. For some reason it upsets people.

Try to do this whan no-one is at home, and will not be returning for a good few hours; my wife has informed me that Eau-de-Mobil-1 is not her favorite perfume, nor will it ever be, and that if she sees me doing this she will install the tappets for me. I'm not sure that I would like that...

Les

[bobbber]

That's a good trick Gary... I'll try that!

What about the plugs tho? Should they be shorted out on the crankcase? If you crank the engine for "minutes" with no plugs, doesn't harm occur to the coil and stuff?
_________________
Fiat Bravo 165 Sport

[Eddie W]

Hi Les, funny how a womans sense of humour disappears when it comes to such trifles as a house that they can't breathe in. I've found the same occurs with oilstains on the carpet and dining table etc. Where else do they expect you to do delicate operations? Especially if it's cold in the workshop.
As for the ignition you can disconnect the power supply to the module.
Personally I'm not usually a fan of additives but when I acquired daughters S2 1.7 it had some lifters that sounded like pistons trying to find their way out of the block and not wanting to pull it all down at the time and bearing in mind the expense of replacing all the lifters, I made some enquiries from some very smart mechanic friends and they recommended Promar which should be available in europe. It worked a treat on our car and the lifters are now quite good. When I do need to pull it down however I plan to convert to solid lifters.
Regards Eddie
_________________
A LITTLE FURTHER A LITTLE FASTER

[LDA]

how much hard work is it to convert the 1.7 16v to solid lifters? my last car popped some of them on high revs and i dont want to do it again to this engine

L.
_________________
A good workman allways blames his sh*t tools.

[Eddie W]

Sorry I've no experience of 16Vs but to do it to the 8V is quite simple.
Regards Eddie
_________________
A LITTLE FURTHER A LITTLE FASTER