Just picked up an 03 Disco. It has a tick or tap for about 10-15 seconds on start up,...then completely goes away. Oil level is fine,....so thinking I have something else going on. I'll do a fresh oil change with Rotella, which I used to use in my other 03 D2, (Have gone to Castrol 20-50 in it),

Suggestions?

Brian in Austin

 

you have prob read somewhere about checking your oil pressure with a mechanical gauge at the pump. My first concern would be weak oil pressure. Engine could be starving for oil at the top end. No need for me to elaborate on that until low pressure sitch is confirmed. I would hold off on the oil change until you get readings on the oil pressure because you need to know exactly what the issue is before you go and put a bandaid on it and then have some catastrophic failure down the road.

 

Exactly. Very front of the motor and your pressure sender will be on the passenger side toward the bottom. Unfortunately this '03 doesn't have a cooler and the pipes that attach to the cover assembly to guide you but if you search google images you will know what you are looking for before you even go underneath.

Also, do some thorough reading before you actually do your testing. You are looking for numbers at (4) seperate intervals which you will need to record and compare to vehicle specs. Numbers for something like cold@idle, cold@2500rpm, warm@idle, warm@2500rpm---just an example but not far from legit.

 

Just chiming in... if your 03 doesn't have an oil cooler there will be two plugs that you can remove to check pressure. One is at the bottom of the front cover.

I had that sound and symptom once and I went nuts trying to figure it out.

Joe, I can't find your email address. Shoot me an email I may have something for you. Worth a drive to East Texas maybe.

 

His tick was from low oil pressure if I remember right. Probably a different scenario but same symptom as top end starves for oil. Did you run that pressure check? Would be very high on my priority list and just me personally, wouldn't run the engine again til I had a gauge on it trying to figure things out. Those plugs charlie was talking about...the 1 at the very bottom (6:00 o'clock) by itself. If unsure, just use the location containing the sensor.

 

I did. It was a cascade.

RTV in the pickup tube starved the pump, scoring the front cover, the rocker arms, and the cam bearings. Pretty extreme. The engine is under a tarp awaiting a full rebuild. It may be waiting a long, long time. At one time or another I posted the pictures of the RTV, the scored pump and front cover, and the head swaps. I would re post them but it is just embarrassing... all my fault because I didn't know what I was doing.

I had more than normal ticking. But the ticking that was at the beginning, at startup, was probably the result of the column of oil quickly and completely draining back to the pan when the engine was off because everything from the pump to higher points was scored and it just would not hold any oil in the passages. In effect, I had a dry oil pump at every startup. Cleaning the pickup tube and removing all RTV, then replacing the pump and front cover, fixed that but could not fix the rocker arms and the worst: cam bearings.

One other thing that comes to mind is the pickup tube where it connects to the front cover. There is a tiny o ring on the end of the tube. If the o ring is gone or the pickup tube not tightly secured, oil would drain back to the pan

Also, a broken oil pump can make a ticking sound as it rotates and hits the two lips in the front cover but I think that ticking would not go away.

Really the only way to tell would be to pull the pan and front cover and look for a problem. But in each of those scenarios you would have low oil pressure for at least a few moments. In my case, once I fixed that, I didn't have low pressure but I still had ticking because the top end damage was done.

 

Turns out this noise is NOT consistent. Not on every cold start. And,....sometimes hear it at idle when its hot. I smell fuel in the oil,...so dumping the oil tomorrow and changing to Rotella.