Engine tick??

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upnorthLS

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Not sure if anyone has encountered this, hopefully someone can give me some ideas! First start in the morning, no matter what outside temp is, my engine starts a slight ticking as it idles down. Doesn't do it the rest of the day and seems to run fine. Sounds like a tick I used to get with a bad lifter , but I know there's no lifters. Maybe an injector starting to screw up?? Any ideas would be great. 2004 LS V8 Sport. 24000miles. no mods,,Yet!!
 
What gas are you using. Mine did it once when I was a cheap a$$ and put 87 in it but then it went away with better gas.
 
It *could* be that the top of the engine has very little oil after sitting and draining down all night. Then the cams/cam chains/valves will chatter until it runs for a few seconds. This allows the oil pump to pump oil to the top of the heads.
 
My wife's old VW used to do the same thing, did it since day one. Once the engine got hot (and expanded some), poof no more noise. took in several times, never could fixed it. Later on we got a hold of a TSB that addressed the issue - it was the piston hitting the top of the head (machining issue from the supplier) the recommendation by Volkswagen was "convince customer noise is normal." Well we took the TSB with us and they had to replace the head. no more noise.

Could also be carbon build up or as stated above oil starvation - make sure you use a quaility oil filter no cheap crap.
 
upnorthLS said:
Not sure if anyone has encountered this, hopefully someone can give me some ideas! First start in the morning, no matter what outside temp is, my engine starts a slight ticking as it idles down. Doesn't do it the rest of the day and seems to run fine. Sounds like a tick I used to get with a bad lifter , but I know there's no lifters. Maybe an injector starting to screw up?? Any ideas would be great. 2004 LS V8 Sport. 24000miles. no mods,,Yet!!
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I get this crap to, its todays bad gas..IMO..

I had gas treatments at the Lincoln service center and no change, oil changes done by the Lincoln service center, still no change.

Some one said bad air fuel mixture, but I never got around to it.

Eventually it started ticking as I slightly hit the gas and weird stuff with exceleration like that.
 
Thanx for the ideas guys, I think(after reading in the service manual, thanx to owlman) that is probably an injector. Gonna try some good injector flush and see if it helps. It's definetly a tick not a knock and only happens at first warm up of the day.
 
is your a/c on when you start the car? mine ticks too. only when i turn on the A/C though. like yours though, it will start ticking 5 seconds after i turn the a/c on then the ticking will disappear for 10 minutes, come back for 10 more minutes, disappear for 10, come back for 10.
 
Sounds like a tick I used to get with a bad lifter , but I know there's no lifters.
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No instead they use a non adjustable "shim" under the camshaft lobe. They will eventually wear down and there will be a slight gap between the camshaft and valve spring. You can have the shims replaced and that should fix the problem, assuming that the mechanic who replaces them knows wtf he/she is doing.
Another thing that comes to mind is a faulty anti-drain back valve on the oil filter is letting the oil drain out of the passages in the block overnight. Then when you start the car in the morning there is no oil reaching the top end of the engine for a few seconds until the oil pump refills the passages.
 
97stscaddy said:
No instead they use a non adjustable "shim" under the camshaft lobe. They will eventually wear down and there will be a slight gap between the camshaft and valve spring.
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Those shims should be hardly worn at all at 24K miles; they're not due for service until 100K miles. The '89-'95 3.0 SHO V6 uses the same DAMB buckets, and I've never heard my (now my brother's) '95 SHO make that noise, even when it was well past the 100K service mileage.

One type of ticking that's audible at startup but disappears on warm up is a cracked exhaust manifold. As the engine warms up, the metal in the manifold expands, closing the crack and silencing the noise.
 
Ticking Noise

I have a 2003 V-8 Sport and get a ticking noise at start up, regardless of the temperature. It is very quiet but still noticeable. I have done extensive checking on this and on my car it is NOT the engine! The noise most definitely comes from the transmission area. Park the car on ramps for the night. Get under the car while the wife starts it. Mine is around the TQ area and pan. Lincoln could not find anything and I am now off warranty. Does not appear to have anything to do with the engine?
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97stscaddy said:
No instead they use a non adjustable "shim" under the camshaft lobe. They will eventually wear down and there will be a slight gap between the camshaft and valve spring. You can have the shims replaced and that should fix the problem, assuming that the mechanic who replaces them knows wtf he/she is doing.
Another thing that comes to mind is a faulty anti-drain back valve on the oil filter is letting the oil drain out of the passages in the block overnight. Then when you start the car in the morning there is no oil reaching the top end of the engine for a few seconds until the oil pump refills the passages.
Click to expand...



I'm going to go with a kind-of +1. I haven't reseached it yet, but I'd almost be willing to bet that there are hydraulic tappets in the valvetrain. It's highly unusual to see solid valvetrains these days, and I'd really have to question the intellegence of the engineer that would design a solid valvetrain with no adjustability. Further, in theory, if it were a solid valvetrain with no hydrualic tappets, the valvetrain would have to be reshimed (the equivelant of adjusting) periodically. So I'd be somewhat inclined to speculate a failing tappet

I do however, very much agree on the speculation about the anit-drain back valve; and given that's the easiest and cheapest fix (replace the filter), I'd go down that road first.
 
Ahh... only 24k on it. Didnt see that before, it was hiding down there in the corner. Shouldn't be anything in the valvetrain then, unless someone ran it with no oil. Im pretty sure that would eat the bearings in the bottom end to peices long before the camshaft was affected though.

Try a new (better) oil filter.
 
NateRW21 said:
I'm going to go with a kind-of +1. I haven't reseached it yet, but I'd almost be willing to bet that there are hydraulic tappets in the valvetrain.
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No, no hydraulic lifters. The LS's valvetrain uses DAMBs (Direct Acting Mechanical Buckets) between the cam lobes and the valves. Clearances are adjusted by the use of steel shims, checked/replaced every 100K miles.

It's the same system that was used in the 3.0 SHO V6 from '89 to '95, and it has worked very well in both of these applications.
 
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