Technical Loud Tapping sound from engine?

[Joe_Pineapples]

My 1.8 started making an awful tapping sound this morning. It increases with rpm and it seems to be coming from under the rocker cover. I've checked the oil and it was about 1/3, so I filled it up, but it hasn't made a difference.

I took it past a local mechanic who said he reckons it needs a new cylinder head which sounded like a pretty expensive job. Does anyone have an idea what it could be? I've had a read around on here and there seems to be alot of trouble with this kind of thing on the 1.4 with oil starvation and cleaning the oil feed (like this thread), but no one seems to have mentioned this with the 1.8.

Is there anything I should check or watch out for that would tell me what the problem is?

Cheers guys

 

[Thrisey]

Could be oil flow to one of the hydraulic tapits, maybe one is either damaged or blocked, you could try and engine flush to see if you can move it, my 1.2 suffered this on 1st start up so I used a flush and changed oil and filter all seemed cured after, maybe worth a try, I think a new cylinder head is a bit to much "over kill" to be honest.

 

[Joe_Pineapples]

Fair enough. The mechanic is going to take the top off to have a look on Tuesday and I guess I'll know more then. If one of the tappets is damaged or seized can I replace it with one from a scrapyard or are they mated to the cylinder head? I'm just trying to work out how much it's likely to cost...

 

[Charnwood Fox]

When I had a tapping from my 1998 1.6 SX it was a few days after getting the cambelt and tensioner done.
It was the new tensioner that had failed. The service manager told me "You're driving this nowhere!" when I took it in.

 

[Joe_Pineapples]

Well the car went in to the garage today so they could take the head off the engine and have a look at the cams and tappets - apparently everything's fine in there, and all the parts are moving as expected. There is a little wear on some of the cam lobes but doesnt look like enough to warrant the noise in their opinion. I thought that the noise would increase over time if engine wear were the case, whereas this has just suddenly happened - i was letting the car run down a hill breaking on the engine in third and it just started clicking, so it was something that occurred spontaneously.

It's gone back together now anyway and had a new water pump and cambelt / tensioner fitted (needed doing tbh) and it's still making the noise... from Thrisey's suggestion and what I've read elsewhere it might be worth giving the engine a good flush and then using a decent fully synthetic oil or selenia as per fiat spec. What do you guys think?

Cheers

 

[skaramazoo]

I once had a similar noise coming from the same spot directly related to RPM and later realised it was due to lack of lub oil. The oil pressure warning light indicated that I had been inadvertently running the 1.2 16v Brava for over 5 miles on literally no lub oil. It all started after a routine oil change when the mechanic forgot to tighten the drain screw on the oil sump. After topping up with oil and tightening that screw there was no problem whatsoever. It was quite a scare though!