HELP! i have a ticking noise that won't stop 96' Rodeo

can any one help me? I have a 96 isuzu rodeo that has a ticking noice that wont stop. it sounds like the one that a vehical makes when its time for an oil change but i have changed the oil twice with different wights of oil and also added the lucus stuff thinking the oil was to thin but it didn't help.What is it's problem

Unless its really bad its pretty normal. Your engine has hydraulic valve lash adjusters. The hole for the oil port in them is pretty small and will get varnish or other junk in them so they dont work quite as well. You might have someone check your oil pressure to make sure it is ok. My mitsu pickup had the same adjusters, if more then a couple were ticking or it didnt quiet down a bit after a few seconds I knew my pressure was low and needed to add a quart of oil. Mitsubishi forums are full of posts about it, they all tick. Glad isuzu moved away from that style for the year that I have.

The ticking is not normal. Search the forums and you will find more information than you could ever want.

To summarize, there are 2 possiblities. 1. Timing belt tensioner can be going out, causing the timing belt to slap against the timing covers, making a ticking sound.

2. The valve train does tend to make noise, most often because of temporary oil starvation at one point in it's life. Sometimes it just starts to tick. To cure this, use mobil-1 5w30 FULL synthetic oil and a good oil filter (NOT fram or anything made by fram).

Good luck.

I wouldnt worry too much about Fram. All my vehicles have only used Fram air, oil, and fuel filter. They have all gone well over 200,000 miles. The only one that died of engine failure was my '72 toyota corona and that was only because my bro in law bought it from me. He doesnt change or check oil very often. It died at 240,000 miles.

Frams are fine, but if you ever see any of those posts online where they actually take the time to cut apart oil filters (new and used) Fram oil filters 'look' absolutely horrible compared to the rest. You can almost always get a filter with better 'looking' internals for less money. As far as the ticking goes for the 1993-1997 3.2? IMHO- Just keep up on the maintenance and leave it alone. They are known tickers and can (and will) hammer away at themselves for 100's of thousands of miles. It's not worth tearing into unless you have to for a performance, economy, or mechanical issue.

G/luck
Joel

I wouldnt worry too much about Fram.

Actually my Rodeo has the worst ticking with FRAM oil filters. I changed to the Purolator Pure One and occasionally the Napa Gold (wix) filters and the difference is like night and day. At first, I doubted that the filter would make such a difference so on a subsequent oil change I went back to the Fram filter and the ticking came back like crazy. I immediately went out and bought a pureone, put it on, and the ticking subsided big time. It ticks but it isn't the monstrous tick that turns heads like with the fram. I think fram's antidrain back valve (ADBV) is crappy.

Fram's anti-drain back valves look crappy as does their bypass/ internal PRV. The bypasses on them look as if they will leak all the time. From what I've read, frams usually have the lowest pressure drop because the bypass leaks by. As far as the ADBV goes, It shouldn't matter on 3.2/3.5's as the filter is mounted so low, it can't empty out anyway.

G/luck
Joel

Without getting too far off topic, frams are not fine. The internals are what counts. The results speak for themselves (see above post). Yes they are cheap. You get what you pay for.

My motor can tick like crazy if:
1. I use regular motor oil
2. I use crappy oil filters
3. The oil is dirty.

Take my word on this one. Use 5w-30 Mobil 1, and your engine will run smoother, quieter, and the ticking will subside. I would also reccomend full synth in your tranny, diffs and xfercase. 1-2mpg increase is what I noted, not to mention smoother shifting.

By the way, I would stay far away from the lucas stabilizer stuff. It's garbage and can do more harm than good. Do some research if you don't believe me.

Best thing I have found so far is MobilClean 5000 and a Bosch filter. No ticking for the past 5 months.

Depending on how many miles are on your 96 you may want to run some auto-RX or seafoam thru it before putting a high dollar oil in it. I am on my cleanse phase of an auto-RX and it seems to be working real well. If you want more oil info than you will ever need go to

http://theoildrop.server101.com/cgi/ultimatebb.cgi?

I've never had any valve noise with my Rodeo in the past. But, in the last few days, I've noticed an adjuster ticking and it won't go away.

The last oil change, 2000 miles ago, I used regular Castrol 10 - 30w motor oil. This was a change from the Castrol Syntec 10 - 30w blend that I have used in the past.

Today, I am going run some engine flush and change back to the Syntec blend that I've always used.

Hopefully, this will quiet the noisy adjuster.