E30 Zone

My 325 has been rather tappety since I bought it nearly a year ago, I've had the valve clearances adjusted but that made no difference at all.
I've since traced most of the noise to the back end of the engine, around cylinders 5 and 6.
I had the rocker cover off a couple of weeks ago, and noticed that there was no oil dripping from the spray bar towards the rear of the engine. So I had it off and gave it a good clean out with carb cleaner, put it back on, but still no oil drips from the last couple of holes - it drips quite fast from the first hole and then gets less and less going towards the back.
It looks as though there is oil feeding in to it from the front of the engine, but not from the back.
Is oil supposed to feed in from both ends? If so I guess the other end feed must be blocked, what's the best way to clear it?

Anybody?
Would an engine flush with some flushing oil work?

i would if i were you change the spray bar and check the washers under it my etk shows 2 washers either side of the union joint when i stripped it there was only one ....it cost me Ԛ£9 for a new spray bar from gsf...good luck

I have the very same problem.

I did a flush of the engine oil and changed oil filter and put 20w50 oil in it (as opposed to thinner 10w40 thast it's recommended to run) and believe me or not, the ticking got worse !

In my car it's like on cold it doesn't tick, but as the engine is warm it starts to tick. feels like the thicker the oil gets the more it ticks....

when i get home tonight i'll try the following trick:
remove valve cover, and remove spray bar. then runt the ngine and see whether i'm geting oil form both spray bar-feeding holes...

me too, adjusted valves no-end !, i got some pretty good results with 0.22mm (as in ticking was noticably reduced), but people say it's bad and I can damage engine. sombody mention to set them all to 0.3 cold.... that worked good on m30 engines (i.e. setting them more then factory specs)

Sombody mentioned aswell to rotate rocker shafts.... which I tried, but I cant turn them.... they seem to be stuck i one position... if anyone could advise me how to go about doing that i'd greatly appreciate

You can't rotate the rocker shafts as they need to be in a set position and are locked at the end. But you can swap them over.

i use to use 10w40 oil semi syn and i noticed the tappet sounded louder, now that i am using Fusch 5w40 synthetic my engine is running quiet. yes the engine is bit noisy until it is fully warmed.

haffeel wrote:yes the engine is bit noisy until it is fully warmed.

I find that.

You won't get much oil comming out of the spray bar at tick over, did you try to rev the engine, it doesn't have to be high revs just say 2k rpm ?

Get some cloths ready as the oil will splash around a bit with out the valve cover on.

It's one of the reasons why you shouldn't leave your engine to warm up on tick over if you can help it.

Andy, yes I did give it some revs, but there was still no oil coming from the last (back of engine) couple of holes, the other holes just dripped fater. There was plenty splashing around in there though. This was after blasting through the spray bar with carb cleaner.

Jackle wrote:Andy, yes I did give it some revs, but there was still no oil coming from the last (back of engine) couple of holes, the other holes just dripped fater. There was plenty splashing around in there though. This was after blasting through the spray bar with carb cleaner.

just a note, yes, I myself cleaner my spray bar ages ago that showed no improvement for me either.

My best guess is that the spry bar is fed from both end and that the feed at the back of the engine is blocked. I don't really know how to clear it though, maybe take the spray bar off and blast some air or maybe an oil spray down it? Anyone got any better suggestions?

Jackle wrote:My best guess is that the spry bar is fed from both end and that the feed at the back of the engine is blocked. I don't really know how to clear it though, maybe take the spray bar off and blast some air or maybe an oil spray down it? Anyone got any better suggestions?

thats exacly what I am stuck on...

and another mystery is...
on cold engine i get 60 psi oil pressure (I got a gauge) at tickover. once warmed up i got 20psi at tickover, which is normall according to the manual. My point is that on 60 psi the spray bar should be spitting oil, no problem (as 60 psi is the max oil pressure allwed by the oil press relief valve anyways)