Hi all, my mum has a 1989 4 cyl camry, this morning on start up it made a very loud tappet noise, she turned it off straight away, started it back up again whilst I was there and it was still pretty loud but soon quitened down to a little tapping sound. I checked the dip stick, plenty of oil & the oil was changed only 3,000 klm ago.

Anyone know what could cause this, as it is normally a quite very well looked after car.

appreciate any helpfull suggestions,
thanks.

 

For the sake of anyone else that may get this problem, I asked a mechanic who said it may be the oil pickup need cleaning, I asked him about an engine flush and he said " trouble is it may dislodge some other gunk and cause more problems, so its going in to drop the pan & clean the pick up and change the oil, shall see what happens.

 

Post back on the results.

 

Will do.

 

Well, finished up taking to our local mechanic & he undone the oil cap and said looks a bit gunked up, I explained to him the car does bugger all work, just drives around locally never does any long trips, he was of the opinion that what it needs to fix the problem, so that is what going to happen, shall see if he is right.

 

Might be sludge buildup.

Ask the shop to remove the valve cover (quick and easy job). If sludge it will be seen on the valve train.

One issue is sludge can plug up the oil passages to the valve train resulting in oil starvation (and noise).

 

Thanks, he said to take it for a drive and give it a thrashing on an open road and take it for some long trips, he reckons this will do it good, he says that Nulon engine flush is good to use but not to keen on that idea, i thought it may dislodge some other gunk and cause big problems.

 

Not sure about that advice.

Suggest you do an internet search on engine sludge and what to do about it.

The issue is the oil may not have changed as often as required for the type of driving. Short trips do not allow the water and other contaminates to be burned off during driving.