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MG MGF Technical - My F Sounds Like A Tractor!

Hi everyone, I'd really appreciate any suggestions!

I bought an F a couple of months ago but it had been standing for two years, the immobilser had gone, so i got a new one and had it tuned in, all was good started first time but....... it sounded like a tractor. I flushed the engine, changed the oil and filter and have been driving it round for a couple of weeks but it doesnt sound any better. To be honest it's an embarrasment! It's a VVC model so I dont know if there is something wrong with that. I don't want to take it apart if I can help it so any suggestions as to what i could do to make her purrrrr again will be gratefully received!

Thanx for taking the time to read my woffle ;)

Amy
Amy

Sounds as there is still a lot of air in the hydraulic lifters despite oilchange and some driving... Have you had the engine up to full temp on a longer run? Mine takes several longer runs after the winter sleep to be back at normal tappet sound. One or two tappets that ticks or the lot ? What type of oil ?
Carl Blom

get a hosepipe and wander one end around the engine while the other is against your ear. Tractor noise may be a loose manifoled, lamda sensor or sparkplug. although these sound more like slapping than ticking
Will Munns

yeh ive had the car up to temp, its only the one tappet that is noisey :( i used semi-synthetic oil 10/40? is that bad:/ ?
Ami

My VVC was noisy for a 'while'. I eventually thought it might have been the hydraulic lifters, so I 'flushed' and replaced oil. Noise still there. It turned out to be (as Will mentioned above) a loose spark plug. It had worked loose and was still contained by the plastic cover luckily. It was strange that the car performed fine but definately noisily. Simple to check and easy to cross off the potential cause list if it is not that.
Keith Williams

Mike Satur has a VVC rattle fix in his price list.
MAybe he will be along to explain more.
Jon Baker

Amy, why was this MGF layed up for two years do we know? Perhaps this noise might have something to do with that period of inactivity?
Rob Bell

Well the guy I bought it off used to import cars from Japan for a living. He said that after his wife died he decided to change carreer and is now an undertaker. He said that he had never had the car running because there was a problem with the immobliser (yeah there wasnt one!). Someone had all the wiring out in the passenger footwell and had the ecu off and tried to botch it and failed. I've had an auto-electrician rewire everything to put it straight. Now of course its running and passed its MOT but sounds like a diesel :(
ami

If the car hasbnt been run for a while might just need a good run!

Did this with granny's black bullet
sounds terrific

Neil

I had this on my 2000W MGF, it sounded terrible like a diesel, the cause was the hydraulic tappets not pumping up due to a blockage in the oil feed to the head.

Beaware that I drove over 100miles with it like this before the cam siezed and it was like it when I bought the car so I don't know how many miles it had done like this (Car was bought with a dead gearbox)

I would strongly recommend that you don't drive the car until you have fixed this because if its the same problem as I had, the cams run direct in the head without bearings and so I ruined the head, cams and cam carrier on mine (expensive!!!)

The only way to check is to remove the cam carrier (not sure how easy this is on a VVC)if you cannot see loads of oil around either try pushing a thin piece of wire down the oil feed to the head, if when you pull it out their is oil on it like a dipstick then this is likely the blockage as all of the oil should drain back from this oil way once the engine stops.
Alternativly I removed the cambelt, cams and spark plugs and span the engine over on the starter to see if any oil came out. When it didn't I removed the oil pump and cleared the blockage, unfortunaly at this stage I had already ruined the head etc.

I hope that it isn't this as its a real swine to fix but it may help you eliminate this possibiliy.

Regards

Andrew Smith

A D Smith

HI, Could an engine "flush" with one of the on market brands be of help? I did this as a normal maintenance issue at the 25k mark.Cheers Bob
rb wadwsorth

Mileage?

It might be the VVC mechanism. I don't know how a "rattle fix" works - I have just replaced on a 90,000 mile VVC.
Derrick Rowe

MY 96 VVC has been doing this for months. I've tried replacing the oil and spark plugs but it didn't help. Plan on trying an engine flush this coming weekend and the oil ( again ).

I'll post the results towards the start of next week.
Garry

Thanx for all your suggestions :)

Going to have a go this w/end coming. Wish me luck!

I flushed the engine but didnt make any diffenence at all. The car has only done 36,000.
Ami

Can't you disable the VVC by disconnecting the cam sensor while its running. This would cause the MEMS to goto fixed inlet cam ?
Jon Baker

Maybe its not the engine at all, as you seem to have serviced it quite well and runs OK just sounds like crap. As it may be an import from Japan....have you had the exhaust/manifold checked out....it may be just that, pretty simple job to fix. Just a suggestion....
Sue Wilson

Yes there is a large spring on the flex join which can rattle at idle.
rb wadwsorth

Dear Ami,I hate to be considered a "Job's comforter" and would be delighted to be wrong but a couple of years ago I asked the very same question(virtually using the same terminolgy you have)about my daughter's ZR.Her's is an 03 and done 62k.At start up it had always rattled away for quite a few seconds until it quietened down.However,only some 500 miles ago the dreaded HGF struck and its now been fixed.Guess what? No rattles at all since the update repair.In fact, it drives like a new car again.So we were wondering if she was heading for HGF all along in some way.

So thats our 2 sorted (till next time).Mines a 97 VVC---HGF at 38k last year.Pig.

Hope you get sorted out ok.
MR Blencowe

This thread was discussed between 21/10/2006 and 24/11/2006

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