Loud Noisy Clacky ALH motor

[Bob_Fout]

Does the TDI in question have an automatic transmission or have an 11mm pump by chance?

 

[nokivasara]

Too far advanced injection timing will give that sort of marbles in a can sound.

 

[2nsane2005]

Manual transmission. I'm going to retard my timing tomorrow when I have access to buddy's vagcom! hopefully that'll fix it!


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

[2nsane2005]

Well guys it's FIXED. Adjusted the pump. Retarded it. And now no more ugly tractor noise haha. It's running perfect!! Thanks for the help guys

 

[Bert0925]

Just curious as to how much it was advanced, and by how much did you retard the timing

 

[JettaJake]

 

[HiaceTDI]

Just piggyback on this thread a little bit, my alh has started ticking really loudly right after a long 200km+ drive. I had a look thinking I had an exhaust leak and sure enough my egr block off plate had a leak. I replaced that plate and gasket and I'm still getting really loud noise. I don't think it would be injection timing as it was working perfectly fine since I installed the engine 15000km ago. I just did an oil change with liqui moly 5w40 if that makes any difference

 

[yeeet]

Just piggyback on this thread a little bit, my alh has started ticking really loudly right after a long 200km+ drive. I had a look thinking I had an exhaust leak and sure enough my egr block off plate had a leak. I replaced that plate and gasket and I'm still getting really loud noise. I don't think it would be injection timing as it was working perfectly fine since I installed the engine 15000km ago. I just did an oil change with liqui moly 5w40 if that makes any difference

Can you post a video? Does it tick constantly or only when it's hot or cold?
Any chance you ever replaced the lifters?

 

[HiaceTDI]

Can you post a video? Does it tick constantly or only when it's hot or cold?
Any chance you ever replaced the lifters?

Its a freshly build engine with only 15000km on it since I did the swap into my van. The clacking started while I was driving and the engine was hot. There was an exhaust leak from the egr blockoff plate and I've fixed that. It sounds normal on video but it's just really loud.

http://imgur.com/a/uJjh6s8

 

[HiaceTDI]

Ok so imgur doesn't have sound... Odd

Noisy alh

youtube.com

 

[yeeet]

Ok so imgur doesn't have sound... Odd

Noisy alh

youtube.com

If you rev, does the ticking also increase with the revs or stays the same?

 

[HiaceTDI]

If you rev, does the ticking also increase with the revs or stays the same?

It increases with rpm

 

[HiaceTDI]

I checked the timing and low and behold my camshaft was out! By about 5 or so degrees!I used the notch on the crank pulley and timing cover and the injection pump pin slot lined up but the setting bar for the back of the cam wouldn't fit as the camshaft wasn't rotated enough. I've taken the cam belt and tensioner bearing out and am going to pull the sprocket off, re torque to 45ftlbs and put the belt back on. Although when I removed the tensioner bearing I noticed the copper washer was hard to get off, I should probably go ahead and replace that right?

 

[HiaceTDI]

Well I re set the timing and my engine blew up mere moments later. I have no idea why as everything lined up with all the tdc marks and I had the cam setting bar all aligned. It's looking pretty likely that I'll need a new engine. On the plus side, I won't have to worry a out a noisy engine I guess

 

[Mozambiquer]

Well I re set the timing and my engine blew up mere moments later. I have no idea why as everything lined up with all the tdc marks and I had the cam setting bar all aligned. It's looking pretty likely that I'll need a new engine. On the plus side, I won't have to worry a out a noisy engine I guess

What do you mean by it "blew up"

 

[HiaceTDI]

What do you mean by it "blew up"

It started making a loud puffing noise then it seized completely. I can't even turn it over by hand
Before I drove it I rotated the crank by hand about 20 times to make sure nothing was fouling and it seemed fine
I then started it up briefly for about a minute and it ran perfectly in time and smooth with no noise. Only after I drove it down the road did it start to make some horrendous expensive sounding noises

 

[Prairieview]

You might want to "tighten-up" your timing and assembly skills on that next engine. Do you own a Bentley manual? Spend more time in the manual and less time behind a keyboard.

 

[Mozambiquer]

I'd pull the head, but what's quite possible is that when the timing was out, it was having valves to piston contact, and then when you reset the timing, one of the valves broke and locked the engine up.

 

[HiaceTDI]

You might want to "tighten-up" your timing and assembly skills on that next engine. Do you own a Bentley manual? Spend more time in the manual and less time behind a keyboard.

I did everything according to the bently manual I have. One thing the bently doesn't have is combined experience of people who have gone through similar issues In the past, which is why Im posting on a 7 year old thread. And this engine I had to swap both the injection pump and bracket from my donor alh that I started with(this is the second engine I had, first one died when I was building the swap) so I've done the timing process before, and put 15000km on this engine before it blew up. I haven't opened the engine up yet but will keep you posted on what I find

 

[Prairieview]

Quite frankly, most of the guys who post on this forum never saw the inside of an alh. Lots ahh talk though.......

 

[HiaceTDI]

Update: I haven't pulled the head just yet but upon removing the valve cover I can see that the first valve on cylinder one has shot up through the tappet and destroyed it and damaged the cam lobe. Suffice to say I'll probably be scouring the junkyard for another head for the meantime. If I had messed up the timing it would have been a lot worse so I guess that's the good news :/
I'm guessing that the first piston will most likely have some damage and the cylinder walls might have some damage as well but I'm really hoping it won't be that bad

http://imgur.com/a/Jtlvd2g

 

[csstevej]

Unless something fell into the cylinder..... the piston and walls should be fine....

 

[HiaceTDI]

Man I really hope so. My current plan of action is to take a piston from my other blown up engine and replace the one that is most likely damaged and find a junkyard head to install. I want to rebuild the first engine as its bottom end (minus the pistons) is in good shape. The nice thing about the second engine is that it had some kind of performance camshaft and made some decent power.

 

[csstevej]

You gotta be careful when swapping components like the pistons and such as they are balanced with each other..
I had a car where I was Doing a TB on and I didn’t like the way it ran before doing the TB job.... I pulled the head and found pistons 1 & 2 beat up and those connector rods bent.
Head looks pristine, PO mechanic botched the TB job and blamed it on the head.
Talked to Franko6 on here and sent him all 4 rods and pistons..... he sent me back 4 good connector rods and 4 good pistons matched in length and all balanced to each other.
I gotta admit...... it’s the smoothest alh I have in our family fleet of 5.

 

[HiaceTDI]

Well, this is what made the noise lol

http://imgur.com/a/ZzOx9z1

I think what happened was the cam slipped, maybe the stock torque spec wasn't sufficient, and as a result of my first gen engine mounts that were too stiff, the vibrations may have loosened the cam sprocket bolt to the point where it may have loosend up over time which cause the cam to slip out of time. When I checked the timing I found the cam was out by 5-10 degrees and that's where the valve made impact with the piston.
The odd thing though is that the tops of the other 3 cylinders are totally fine, not a scratch on em.
Thanks for all the insights on my problem y'all, I appreciate the input. Keep an eye out for the inevitable "I'm rebuilding an alh" thread in the future haha

 

[wonneber]

Quite frankly, most of the guys who post on this forum never saw the inside of an alh. Lots ahh talk though.......

The only thing I saw was when I had the valve cover off for timing belts.