How do I replace the valves on my 04 STi it has a very loud ticking from the left side after I replaced my Timing belt/water pump/thermostat. A costly job but I did it myself to save some money, now that all thats done I need to find out how to replace a valve, it ticks and I've been told that could be the problem. The STi did tick slightly before hand but now it's twice as loud. A link w/pics would be helpful also. Thanks in adavace.
It maybe something as simple as one of the belt guides that are over/under the cam gears has come loose. You should pull the covers back off and check. Hopefully its not a valve as that is very labor intensive repair.
I donno.. I made sure they were all tightened down and it's been ticking ever since then. I'll get up a video of it or audio of it that way we can see whats going on.. Thanks,
How many miles are on the motor. I know they recommend replacing the pulleys and guides when you do a motor swap so maybe some are just bad and need to be replaced. Otherwise replacing a valve I think would AT LEAST require pulling the entire motor and removing your cams. I would also recommend replacing ALL the valves vs doing just one.
you have to remove the heads. the valves only come out one way (hint: through the combustion chamber)
i have 69K miles on it, and I have already changed all belts, and all pullies on it. costly.. right over $700 for everything, including water pump and thermostat..
Water pump seized up and caused timing belt to melt. it wrapped around all pullies/tensioners and caused one to explode, throwing time off. Luckly it didn't over heat and holds pressure and everything runs great, except powersteering and the weired new ticking I got..
Hmm yeah I'd be willing to bet that there was some sort of damage to the heads. I would do a compression and leakdown test just to make sure. Depending on how long/ hot the heads got they themselves could be warped...
After hearing about the timing belt I am surprised your car runs at all. It is an iteference engine and the valves can hit each other or the pistons when a timing belt goes like yours.
What holds pressure? The cooling system? Or the combustion chambers? I would say that there is a 99% chance you have damaged your heads. As Liquid mentioned, it is surprising that it is running at all. Are you in gainesville? I see an 04-05 with WRC decals at Lams all the time...is that you? I would be happy to come by and take a look at it for you.
Yeah generally if this happens you're almost always completely SOL. Looks like you got lucky, at least in a way.
Other than what is already mentioned, you may have a valve bucket that is worn down so much that it causes a noisy valvetrain.
Yea that's me.. I work/run the place lol. I'd be really appricitive of help. I do plan on taking it to SoG when I get the rest of what I bought paid off. But anytime you want to come by I'll be here (except next Tuesday, my day off, though I live in town)
Slowsoul Thanks for coming over and helping me. I've still no pin-pointed the location but your idea did help alot. Also good luck on rebuilding that other car, as you've said. I had to be lucky to be able to even drive my car.. Thanks again..
Yeah, after hearing that tick in person it definately sounded like some interference was going on in that right side head. You might have only bent the valves a tiny bit, which might explain why you are not seeing a huge difference in performance. To be sure, you should do a compression test on the motor if you have a bent valve it will show up. Oh, and we got that Audi back together about a month ago...it is running fine, but we did have to compelely rebuild both heads. I only mentioned it because it was really weird to see another car that the pulleys siezed up on. Never seen that before.
Yes it would be more accurate to help him pin point wether it was the intake or exhaust valves that are damaged (or both), but in this case, I think that a compression test is all that is necessary. Considering the circumstances, if low compression shows up on either one of those two right side cylinders, I think it would be safe to assume that the valves are bent. It doesn't matter which ones are bent. No matter what he learns from a leak down test, the heads have to come off. Don't get me wrong, I agree that a leakdown would be better, but a compression test usually comes before a leakdown...and it is easier to do.