Disco Dan

Hi there!

First off, you guys have a great site with lots of information on it. I DID search for information on this before I asked, so as to not have you guys answering the same questions every other day.

My dad has a 2002 Protege5 with just under 100k on it. In lieu of paying rent this month, I offered to do his timing belt. I felt pretty confident I could do this, assuming I could find a factory service manual (thanks to you guys and ugly.net, that was no sweat). The process was slow, but not exactly back breaking, which is a nice change. As far as I know I did everything according to the manual: aligned the timing belt with the cams and crank correctly, torqued everything correctly, etc. In fact, when I was lining up the cams, the pressure of the cam lobes on the valve springs was making lining up the marks a little bit tricky. So I used a couple of adjustable wrenches and some socket extensions, propped against various parts of the engine bay to make sure that the marks were EXACTly right on. So I know the timing was right.

Now here's the question. Why on earth is there a new ticking/tapping noise?

It's rhythmic, so I figure it must be in time with the engine rotation, though I haven't run enough tests to verify that yet, and the car's not here for me to double check. It seems to run just fine, and the throttle response is as expected, but the ticking noise keeps going. If I use a timing light and check the rhythm of the strobe against the sound of the ticking, that should tell me on which part of the compression stroke the sound is occurring, right?

In addition, one of his drive belts is squeaking, but he's going to pick up the replacements tonight, along with new oil. So I'm going to change the oil and both drive belts, and see if that doesn't eliminate it.

Thing that baffles me is, just thinking about what an engine does, I can't see how an accessory belt would cause a ticking noise. I can see how low oil might cause that in the valve train, but not the belts.

Also, while I'm thinking about it, if I pop off the valve cover to expose the cam shafts, can I double check my timing alignment that way? Logic tells me I can, but I just wanted to make sure.

Buh. I write a lot. OK I'm done. Any ideas?

Roddimus Prime

pop off the valve cover and check a few things..

1. your intake and exhaust cam lobes should be pointing away from each other. Make sure theyare mirror images of each other.

2. Make sure your plastic timing cover isn't touching the water pump pulley or anything else moving.

3. When I did the cams in my p5 My lifters tapped like that until I really opened the engine up and re-built pressure. there are other more technically accurate ways of fixing this but I just ran it up a few good times and it fixed it.


how does the engine run.? Same amount of power?

Disco Dan

Yeah, actually what you described sounds about right. I talked to my dad today, and he said the sound, if it was there, was much less audible. He also said that the power and response was great. He didn't think it was BETTER than before the timing belt change, but it's hard to compare. The main reason for that is probably twofold:

1.) The old timing belt, when I took it out, was in great condition. No I didn't reuse it!
2.) Before removing the timing belt, I checked the timing to see if it had slipped in the last 100k miles. Timing was still dead on.

So I don't think that he would notice an improvement in the car's performance from a timing belt change. This just ensures that the timing belt WON'T go for a very long time.

When he gets home this evening, I'm swapping out the old accessory belts and changing the oil, so that should take care of any remaining noises.

So, I'm thinking it may have been somewhat of a false alarm, but I'm always a bit leary when I'm working on a car that's not my own. Especially a car that's newer (and hence, worth more money). Anyway, thanks so much for the help. If the issue comes up again, I'll post more details, but it sounds like it's sort of soved itself.

Roddimus Prime

yeah, it takes a little while for the oiul pressure to raise the lifters back up fully.

Disco Dan

Yup!

That must have been it. After finishing the oil change and accessory belts, the abnormal noises are all gone. That's quite a relief. Now all he has to worry about is the Check Engine Light, but that's related to the catalytic converter, and THAT has been a headache for the last few months.

Anyway, thanks again for all the help! You guys rock!