|
The hydraulic valve lifters are almost certainly your problem. It's fairly common with older 16-valve B234F engines, especially those that haven't had the oil religiously changed. Grungy deposits in the lifters makes them take longer to fully pump up (fill with oil) at startup. The problem will be most noticeable at a cold startup and the ticking should go away within a minute or so. It's nothing serious, just go easy on the throttle until the ticking stops and the valves are fully pumped up.
Lots of good highway driving will help keep the lifters flushed out. If the car doesn't get used a lot then change oil on a time basis (like twice a year), rather than the recommended mileage basis (5,000 miles for the B234F). Keep the oil clean by doing regular oil changes using a top quality oil and a top quality filter -many long time brickheads consider Volvo/Mann filters as best and will using nothing else. Using an engine flusher with the next change may also help (personally that's where I'd start, but a lot of people don't like to go this route), just be sure to drain as much of the flushing agent as possible. An occasional treatment with an engine oil cleaner additive may also help, but I wouldn't run these on a regular basis -just stick to a quality oil. Permanently switching to a synthetic oil would probably make a huge difference as that tends to unstick just about everything in the engine over the first two oil changes.
--
Dave -not to be confused with a real expert, just goofing around at this
|
