Failed tappet. Accepting recommendations.

Brett San Diego

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2002 Jetta wagon, 350,000 miles. I had a sudden development of a misfire while driving home several days ago. I made it home (about 10 miles of highway driving), but there was clearly a significant issue. There was major noise under the valve cover. I got the valve cover off this morning, and it's a failure of the #4 intake valve tappet. Pics. I have no maintenance history before purchasing it at 220,000 miles. I assume the engine is original to the car. Sooooo... I'm accepting recommendations on what provides the best cost/benefit ratio. I expect to keep this car for several more years. I recognize a number of options. 1. Drop and clean oil pan, oil change, new cam, new tappets, and drive on (This doesn't seem smart.). 2. New head. 3. Reconditioned head. 4. Complete engine rebuild. 5. Engine swap with lower mileage engine (save good parts from old engine).


I don't have experience with this kind of issue that sends lots of metal fragments into the oil system. Do you trash the engine because there is likely unseen damage or is the bottom end generally OK, and just a cylinder head freshen will do it?






thanks,
Brett
 
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Brett San Diego

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hmmm. Does it take special permission to post pics? I seem to recall being able to upload pics in the past, but I see in the "Posting Rules" window, mine says, "You may not post attachments." I'll see if I can put them on the web somewhere.

Brett
 

WildChild80

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How much do you want to spend?

Is this a beater or a nice car you wanna drive for a long time?

New cam and lifters us your cheapest

Everyone that has a frank06 head loves it and swears by it, worth it but not cheap.

Safe bet is a full rebuild but it'll cost you. If you plan on keeping the car for another 3 or 400k miles, a full rebuild wouldn't be crazy, you'd never worry about the engine for the rest of the cars life.

I would swap cams and lifters and wash the head out with brake clean and diesel on...

The oil pan is a royal PITA to get the rear main seal bolts out with the flywheel on, you need a super shallow wobble socket. I've done it once and decided I'll wait for the next clutch change to reseal the oil pan again.

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Brett San Diego

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All options are available budget-wise.

It's a bit of a beater, and I expect it will be my daily driver for a few years to come. I don't know that I'm going to put another 300K on this one. I'd say another 150K is likely. That's about 6 years.

I think my first question is, is it reasonable to leave the head in place, throw in some new tappets and a new cam, and drive it? If that seems OK to do, then next question is, is it reasonable to expect the bottom end to hang in there for another 150K? Is that a good bet or not?

The bottom end still seems nice and tight. I monitored oil consumption for the current oil change interval, and it's only consumed 1.25 qt/10,000 miles. There's very little external leaking, mostly from the crankcase ventilation elbow hose to the intake. So, there's oil getting to the intake but not much as indicated by the low consumption. I should probably do a compression test and see how that stands. Never have done one on this engine.

Brett
 
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WildChild80

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Assuming you keep up on maintenance, I don't see why it wouldn't last another 150k also assuming you're not driving it like it owes you money. It is important to drive it hard every now and then to get the turbo temp up and burn off the buildup inside.

I'd do either a Frank06 cam kit or a Colt cam kit, I've got a Colt cam in my tuned car and I like it...I didn't know who Frank was before I bought my parts...

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burn_your_money

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If the valve stem isn't damaged: lifters, cam and engine flush and oil and filter change should be fine. You'll know if it's not pretty quick and then can go from there. The filter should have caught all the metal fragments since the oil was hot so it shouldn't have been going into relief like on a cold start. This is basically the same as a BEW cam failure and I'm pretty sure virtually no one rebuilds the engine when that happens.
 

flee

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Look very closely at what you remove from the oil pan.
Fragments can lodge in or get past the oil pump screen.
 

Mike_04GolfTDI

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I wonder if there's some issue causing poor lubrication, which led to this cam and lifter failure?

It would be a shame to replace the cam and lifters and have the same thing happen again.

With 350,000 miles on it, maybe the oil pump is worn out? It's not super difficult to drop the oil pan and replace the oil pump. If the oil pump drive chain and tensioner are still okay, replacing the pump itself is very easy. If you also need to replace the drive chain and tensioner, then you have to remove the crank sprocket, and the flange behind it which houses the crank seal. At that point you'd basically be a few steps away from also doing the timing belt.

I'm not as familiar with the ALH engine as I am with the BEW. Maybe someone else can offer other ideas on what to check that might be causing inadequate lubrication of that cam lobe and lifter. It's hard for me to imagine that it would wear that badly, unless it wasn't being lubricated enough. Something caused that specific lobe to disintegrate.
 

WildChild80

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That's a good point Mike.

It does have a ton of miles but it was curling metal off and not just a flat lobe or hole in the lifter...

Are there any seasoned ALH guys out there that have seen this like @oilhammer or @fronk06




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IndigoBlueWagon

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It's entirely possible that an original cam on an ALH with 350K on it would do that. I replaced the cam in my '02 at 155K because it was showing significant wear, despite correct oil use and service intervals. Pretty typical. I am surprised that no one noticed it at the last timing belt change, as it probably took a long time to get worn enough to hole the followers.
 

Brett San Diego

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A little more information. For maybe the last month or so, I thought there was a little more noise from the engine. The diesel is noisy anyway, so I didn't investigate further. I should have. It was probably a severe lifter tick. Perhaps the lifter wasn't holding oil pressure any longer and had collapsed. After a few weeks of banging between the cam and valve, it finally gave way. I saw a picture of another failed lifter, and it seemed like it was a nice clean hole in the center. Mine, on the other hand, seems to have exploded. Most of it is gone. Seems a more violent end.

I did the timing belt myself 40,000 miles ago. In fact, I had the entire head off because I botched cleaning out the intake ports in the head and scraped a bunch of carbon into a couple of the cylinders through open intake valves. The engine wouldn't rotate by hand due to the carbon crushing between the pistons and head. I did have a good look at the lifter surfaces at that time (but maybe not good enough?). I did note some pitting on the #1 exhaust lifter, but I didn't notice anything else. I expected I would replace the lifters, but then I changed my mind and decided I'd go with it until the next timing belt at 400K. Unfortunately, I lost the gamble, but it wasn't the pitted lifter that failed.

The concern over oiling in the head has me concerned. I don't know how I could verify an oiling issue particularly at one specific lifter. I have heard of changing out the oil pump chain and tensioner on high miles engines.

I'm probably going to take my chances with just a new cam, a set of lifters, oil and filter change, and a magnetic drain plug that I just ordered. I'll see how it runs on initial start up. If it seems to run good, I'll change the oil and filter again after maybe a couple hundred miles and cross my fingers and hope to get to 500K. Meanwhile, I'll probably start looking for a low miles replacement engine for the long term.

Brett
 

Prairieview

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Personally, I would be taking a very close and intimate look at the lifter bores in that head to look for scarring on the walls. If the wall is hogged/scraped.....not good.
 

Brett San Diego

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Personally, I would be taking a very close and intimate look at the lifter bores in that head to look for scarring on the walls. If the wall is hogged/scraped.....not good.
Yeah, good point. I'll be taking a good look around when the cam and lifters come off. Almost there. Just need to pin the IP and release the timing belt, but it may be a couple weeks before I can get to it.

Brett
 

Brett San Diego

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Personally, I would be taking a very close and intimate look at the lifter bores in that head to look for scarring on the walls. If the wall is hogged/scraped.....not good.
Well, this was a particularly insightful comment. I got the cam out this evening, and the lifter bore is pretty much destroyed. So, it's either a new or reconditioned head.





This is the neighboring bore for the #4 exhaust.




Brett
 

turbocharged798

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Those valve retainers are ready to fall out. You just got really lucky it didn't drop a valve.



Bad news is that head is probably junk. User Frank06 is a wizard with these heads and seems to be able to repair anything. I would get into contact with him and he might be able to clean that bore up or sleeve it.
 

k_pt

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That lifter bore is pretty scarred, I wonder if it will let the lifter discharge easily, and harder to recharge after the engine is off for a long time.

Would like to hear some opinions on that.
 

Franko6

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I know my username is a problem... Not Frank06, but Franko6. Not Zero, but an alpha 'o'.

By the numbers, there is no way a new cam and lifters is going to fix this problem. The lifter bore is repairable. The keepers are ruined in that worst bore. The other bore is scratched, but not worth installing a sleeve. It just got whacked by debris from the intake lifter pieces. That bore will be fine.

Now, that you already bought a cam a lifter set, I will tell you, if I rebuild the head, I have right of rejection on parts. We find people are sending us either 'white box' parts or parts that have been modified, like a set of lifters that have been nitrided, aftermarket. We looked at the lifter itself, and it's what I'd call 'making a silk purse out of a sow's ear'. We have seen those lifters before. The Chinese version of a INA lifter; we are not doing that.

WildChild80, thank you for the kudos, but I might add that 'cheap' is not a part of our vocabulary. We prefer 'quality'. We have the reputation for getting it right. We may not be perfect, but we work toward that goal. Reputation is important to me. But when we go up against a Spanish cylinder head, I think I'd rather have a cylinder head with 300,000 miles repaired than a brand-new AMC. I think it is fair to say the competition does not build with the same life expectancy that we do.

In my opinion, paying somewhere near $900 for an aftermarket cylinder head, when we repair for usually $650, including cam and lifter set, I'm inclined to think people use our company to save money. And, we have a phenomenal life expectancy, because, quite honestly, we build them better than original.

So, if we were to build your cylinder head and then, provide all the parts to reinstall the cylinder head onto the car (this way we confirm there are no questionable parts installed), we increase our 1-year, unlimited miles warranty to 2-years, unlimited. Most people see we not only provide the good service, but also quality parts; no exceptions.

Also, WildChild80, although we agree the oil pan should be removed and besides checking for debris, I would also be checking for the condition of the oil pump and rod bearings, at least. At 300k+ miles, it would be reasonable to look. Even if the #4 bottom bearing is perfectly good, we prefer to replace the #4 lower bearing with a new slotted bearing, or the set is 4 solid and 6 slotted bearings, with the 'extra' bearing going into the #4 upper and lower position. This is a mistake, in my opinion, that VW refuses to change, when several aftermarket bearing companies know, if your increase oiling to the #3 rod, it lasts longer. TSI, FSI and TDI's are subject to this failure and the slotted main bearing is the very simple fix.

As for the oil pan removal, WildChild80, I have to disagree with you about difficulty removing it. The automatics are easy, but the in the manual, you have to use the slot in the back of the flywheel to align with the two rear main seal screws with the flywheel slot, one at a time, to easily access the two oil pan screws in the rear main seal. We use a 1/4 x 6" wobble extension with a 10mm socket to remove screws and a 6" long 3/8" drive 5mm ball socket allen the reinstall those two buggers... They go in at an odd angle and with the ball socket, the screw sticks onto the socket well and you can easily hand thread the screws in without damaging the brass threads of the rear main seal. Tighten no screw until all are started.

There is one exception we know for the manual flywheel and that is a Eurospec, which has no slot and also has a square shoulder on the engine side, instead of the Sachs flywheels which have a bevel. The bevel allows you access to the rear main seal oil pan screws. With the Eurospec, we have to grind a relief in the flywheel to get the oil pan off. Then, on the opposite side of the flywheel, 180 degrees, and made an equaling balance cut, so as best we could do it, the flywheel would remain balanced. We modified that flywheel before we realized how poorly the Eurospec flywheels were balanced. As far as I can tell, the Eurospec flywheels are not balanced at all. One we removed last year, we got balanced and it was 12.4 grams off. They should be neutral balanced.

Genesis, What we say here about that cylinder head... "It's just another day at the office." We fix that damage by boring out the damage,pressing in an aluminum sleeve, welding it into place and then reboring for a pin fit to the cam follower. We have repaired hundreds of cylinder heads like that. Our success rate has been excellent. We have seen two failures for a lifter bore repair. One was our fault and we fixed it and changed protocol. The other ran out of oil...
 

Genesis

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Yeah I don't think running out of oil could be considered your fault :=)

I just don't get trying to go cheap on parts like cylinder heads. There are places where cheap is ok (easily replaced and not likely to detonate something expensive if/when it fails) but engine components are just not in that category.
 

WildChild80

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Now I'm confused, so there's no frank06?

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oilhammer

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There are just too many to list....
I have only ever once seen an ALH do that, it was also a 2002, had around 250k at the time, FOR SURE was using wrong oil (owner admitted as much). Not that bad, it wasn't allowed to run to the point of something breaking. I put a new cam and lifters in it, car is still on the road (and a regular) today.

But that is it. Every other ALH cam looks fine to me. And I still R&R the valve covers for t-belt jobs. Many have over 300k miles on them. Two here today, one with 250k and one with 350k.
 

Genesis

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I'm with oilhammer on that -- I recently did my timing belt, 230k on the clock, cam looked fine and the visible part of the lifters did as well. There's a bit of a cold-start lifter clack on the car if it sits overnight but it goes away as soon as the oil pressure comes up. Then again the car has run on T6 since the factory oil fill came out of it, so..... yeah, that might have something to do with it :=)
 

WildChild80

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It's not "zero 6." It's "oh 6."

So I guess you could say Franko Six.

I guess Franko, Franko1, Franko2, Franko3, Franko4, and Franko5 were already taken?
Lol, I guess I always just saw 06 instead of o6...one day I'll make it up there to see franko6, actually looking at jobs in St Louis

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Brett San Diego

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Hopefully, this is the last post to close out this thread. I got a quote from Franko6 for repair of my head. I thought his pricing was reasonable, but I decided to go with a salvage head that I pulled from a 2002 Jetta automatic at a local pick-a-part. I was able to power up the instrument cluster and read 263,000 miles. There wasn’t accident damage,so I was a little worried about why it was in the yard. Got the head off, and it looked pristine. Pistons and cylinder walls looked new. I’m guessing the transmission took a dump. $70 for the head including the automatic injectors. Sadly someone had already scavenged the injection pump. But, I’ll save the injectors for a rainy day. I removed the nozzles on my original injectors, cleaned them, and transferred to the new head. I scraped the carbon out of the intake ports. Wasn’t too bad but worth doing with the head on the bench. I cleaned up the mating surfaces, and installed the head with the same thickness 2-hole head gasket, then threw on the new cam and lifters I had already bought with plenty of assembly lube. I pulled the pan and cleaned it out. Lots of metal bits. Glad I did that. Also replaced the oil cooler per the Bentley manual. It says to replace to cooler if you have a failure that sends metal fragments into the engine. Only a Small additional cost. Finished the job this afternoon. After priming the injection pump and hard lines, it fired up after three or so long cranks. The timing and IQ were great right off the bat. No adjustments needed. Took it for a 20 mile test drive, and all seems good. Plan is to change the oil and filter after 100 miles and motor on as usual from there. So long as the valves, springs, and guides are good, I expect I’ll be set for a while. Crossing my fingers.

Brett
 
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Franko6

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Yes. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 were already taken.

To expect a 260k head needs no work is naive. The guides are worn, as are the valve seals. Replacing the oil cooler is completely unnecessary, in my opinion. But I got your message. I don't blame you for doing the PNP, but with that many miles and the engine pulled down, it makes sense to do the cylinder head maintenance.

Good luck.
 

Franko6

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Wild Child,

You are welcome to drop in. Not exactly close to St Louis: 3 1/2 hrs away, but some people like to see where it happens.
 

WildChild80

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Wild Child,

You are welcome to drop in. Not exactly close to St Louis: 3 1/2 hrs away, but some people like to see where it happens.
One day I'll make it up that way... possibly January time...

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