Re: Lifter Clicking

["A. D. Morris" <allanm@primenet.com>]

>From: Nathan Belo <belo@eskimo.com>
>Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 18:18:09 -0700 (PDT)
>Subject: Re: Lifter Clicking
>
>On Wed, 2 Oct 1996, Steve Brehm wrote:
>
>> The lifters on my 87 5000cst (124K miles)seem to be getting louder.
>> they always had made some ticking, but seem worse now. The car has
>> plenty of oil- Mobil 1 15W50. Am I in for trouble? What is the best
>> course of action?  
>> 
>> --Steve Brehm
>> 
>> 
>I bet it's your vacuum pump that is ticking and not your lifters. 
>Very common on the I-5 Audis.  My car does it too.  You can get a used
>one from AVS for $140 I think 360.748.8578.  Everyone that doesn't
>know Audis thought I had lifter problems.  
>
>Nathan Belo
>Seattle
>'88 90 Q 145K
>

Actually, it *may* be the lifters.  For unknown reasons, some just 
make a lot of noise.  Synthetic oil *may* help, may not.  Changing 
the oil may help...Audi has had several TSBs on this, with no real 
solution, although I think they had some bad lifters (like thousands 
of them) in the late '80s.

You can change the lifters, it is not that hard, but it may not help. 
 I have 162K on my '88 90Q, and it has sounded like a diesel for 
about 60K.  I just change the oil when it gets to bad, and they quite 
down somewhat ;-)  I removed my vacuum pump 4 years ago.

Some have sworn by various oils (Marvel, etc.) but nothing has been 
found to be a cure all.  And they are hydraulic, so they can not be 
adjusted - they are supposed to adjust themselves.


-----------------------------------
Allan D. Morris
Phoenix, AZ
allanm@primenet.com
1988 90Q
-----------------------------------