Thread: DET ticking at head?

My buddy has a DET in his sent, and there is a ticking that comes and goes. It will go away for several hundred miles and come back. It is pretty loud. I did a cylinder drop by unplugging each injector and the noise never went away. Injectors are not the problem. Any attempt to isolate the cylinder comes back negative for rod knock and the noise seems to be coming from injector 2 area under the cover.

The noise is rpm dependent
it comes and goes away sporadically
comes from head
loud ticking
cylinder drop test takes out bearings and injectors as possible cause

Is it common to have lash adjusters fail on these motors? If so are they too difficult on the DE? I am a VE guy so I don't know everything that is involved. I have the inclination to find out and get it done though. Just looking for some insight here guys

Thanks.

Lash adjusters can go bad, it's happened to me once. Anything that moves in a motor will eventually stop working right.

The level of difficulty depends on your skills as a mechanic. You have to remove the timing chain and cam/cams to get to the problematic lash adjuster(s). If you can't pinpoint the faulty part, it's a good idea to replace all of the adjusters.

I think I can get by without pulling the chain off completely. I can hold the chain under tension and pull the cam without losing cam timing or messing with the chain. I am pretty sure this can be done without pulling the pan and head... I can do it, that's no problem. But I haven't looked at that head enough to really see how hard it will be ie time consuming. I bet I can change out all four in under 1.5 hours.

After lookin at the FSM it looks like the rocker arms will just pull straight out once the cam is removed! That will give me enough room to pull out all 4 lash adjusters and change them all. Looks simple enough.

it sounds like a failing oil pump. the ticking is rpm dependant becuase the motor builds different oil pressures at different rpms. replace the lifters with ones from a 200sx se-r if you can get them. they can store more oil than the older ones. if it still doesnt go away, then check to see if the oil pan is dented. if it is then the oil pump is being starved for oil which may be causing the problem. also try a using a thicker oil.

no dent on oil pan. oil pressure is good. I am pretty sure the pump is good. The motor only has like 75k miles.

I'd start by removing the valve cover and pushing down on each rocker where the lifter is. If it gives then it needs to be bled/replaced. Replacing lifters is as easy as a cam swap.

I am going to get ahold of the dealer today, see if they stock them. I can have them all changed in an hour.

If you can do a quick write up on this with pics that would be awesome. I gotta bleed my lifters too, but how do you know if they need to be replaced?

If there's any play in the lifter itself. Generally, they shouldn't compress, even if they need to be bled. In order for you to compress them you have to stick a small allen wrench or whatever down thru the middle, and then they should collapse under pressure. This is also how you would bleed them, although you'd have them submerged in fresh motor oil.