I have just finished fitting a 1.8 into a beetle; trouble is the engine is clattering badly - sounds like tappets or valve lifters as they are known in the USA.

I also have a 2.2 which I bought to replace the 1.8 once the transplant was finished - this also suffers from noisy lifters.

What is it with these engines, do they all rattle? Is this a common problem and if so what is the cure?

Suby's often suffer piston slap when cold, but shouldn't do it hot.

They also suffer noisy lifters, seemingly more so than other engines.

Noisy lifters can be caused by a life of crap oil. If you pop off a valve cover and things look black then it's had crap oil. It will have sludge through-out the motor that tends to block up the fine oil pathways in the lifters and makes them noisy or collapse completely.

On my V6 it had noisy lifters to start with, when I used 20W50 oil in it. I looked around the MX6 forums and they all said to run 5W30 synthetic. I made the change and the noisy lifters went away. Sometimes I get 1 noisy lifter when the engine is cold, and that's usually when it's about time to change the oil again.

i'd put an oil rinse through it first. this is spose to be done as per the usual servicing but often is not. it helps a lot. I also made the same mistake as Wes by putting 20W50 in my EJ25. The result was noisy lifters. EJs are spose to use 15w40. That fixed the lifters in seconds. I'm using a semi synthetic at the mo. I've been told that the turbo engines can even use 10W30 for a bit more power I understand, although you'd want to use a fully synthentic for oil that thin.



[ Edited on 3-8-07 by pete wood ]

Maybe it has manual tappets?