top end rattle on brava 1.8elx, loud when cold

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top end rattle on brava 1.8elx, loud when cold

J

James

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Hi All.

I bought a Brava 1.8 ELX a couple of weeks ago, N reg, 47,000 miles, Was great when I picked it up but as the engine was warm already a fault revealed later went unnoticed. Basically when you first start the car from cold the tappets make quite a racket, as the engine warms it gets quieter but never actually disappears, if you rev the engine when hot you can still here a rattle, only faint though. The engine other than that feels like new and has loads of power, I popped into a local garage and the mech' there said he thought it was probably the hydraulics, what do you think? Other than the noise it really is a great car, can I fix it?

Another mechanic told me to put 3 cans of stp oil treatment in there, I was a bit wary of that advice... stuff is like treacle.



Thanks



James
 
Its a 1996 model? 47k is quite low so my guess is it may have been mostly used on short trips in which case the oil never gets up to temp which causes the oil to basically wear out quicker than it should.

The 1.8 has hydraulic tappets which require oil pressure to work as they should so its totally normal for it to make quite a bit of noise at start up as there is no oil pressure straight away. The noise should have died down considerably within 3-5 seconds though.

As the oil is thicker when its cold the tappets won't work 100% so there will be some noise which will go away as it warms up.

If there is still a loud tapping noise when its warm then you may have a problem but it sounds perfectly normal from what you've described. Its got 16 valves and 16 tappets and thats alot of metal bouncing about, it will make some noise.

You are justified to be wary of STP, its really for old smokey clunkers and basically clogs up the holes where oil is leaking from. The danger is you could block an oil way and then its bye-bye engine.

Basically the only way to get it back 'as new' would be a new cylinder head. The tappet carriers (made of aluminium) wear before the tappets (steel) do and they are part of the head on a 1.8.
 
thanks for that

then I think I got a real bargain, hardly a mark on it. Drives like a new car. Found I had to be carefull on the motorway as you can go from 80 to over 100 without really noticing. I like this car. Had fiats occaisionally in the past, my first car during college was a fiat 128 sport bought with my first grant cheque, drove to Berlin in that one.

thanks again.

James
 
Re: thanks for that

I jus got my first bravo (1.8HLX) having had a punto mk1 (1.1!) before that. Really love the bravo so much more refined!

Any advice on driving my new pride and joy considering its a hell of a lot more powerful than the lil punto?
 
Re: thanks for that

Go easy round the roundabouts until you are sure of the rear shocks! :)
 

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