HLA and oil....

[DOHCtor]

Last year, i bought a Mazda 626 Cronos equipped with a 2.5l V6 and a manual transmission... when i did my first tune up, i changed the oil and used some Castrol GTX 10w30 and a Valvoline Filter. unfortunately it began to exhibit a heavy HLA noise something like two days after i did that oil change... since a tought it was the oil that was making this, i changed the oil again and used some Valvoline Max Life 10w30 that time, but it did not correct the issue...

Did anybody experience the same thing with any oil and do you have an idea of how can i correct the situation without having to pull the valve covers..?

 

[Gary Allan]

Two days? That's pretty quick for some fatigue factor on the oil. Now how about just a little more information? Was the HLA noise at idle only ..or 24/7?

Idle only, I'd say that hot visc is too low.

Since oil is still relatively cheap, you can numbly diagnose this with going up and down in visc to see if this corrects it. I have no idea (from your post) how old this engine is ..nor its care prior to you owning it. Apparently your HLA noise didn't exist with previous oil fills ..either that or you managed to get it home before the condition presented itself from the point of sale to the point of you changing it out.

If your don't know the history of this engine, I'd suggest doing an Auto-Rx treatment as a sensible "matter of course" measure. Again, you can attempt to numbly (it works) diagnose the issue by going up or down in viscosity and seeing if the condition is relieved or exacerbated when you go in one direction or the other.

 

[Gremil]

I agree with Gary. Since you just purchased this car, it possible the previous owner used heavier weight viscosity motor oil to hide noises. When you changed oil the problem noise began. Not an unusual trick to sell a car with a noisy engine by using thicker oil or oil heavily laden with some sort of additive that thickened the motor oil.

Try a thicker motor oil and see what happens. Hopefully your problem isn't a serious one.

 

[Lonnie]

Gary's suggestion is right on the button. Start with a clean engine. Then try to figure it out. The fact that you are changing oils might fix it but just changing additive pac's could change something for a short while and confuse the process. People that reduce problems to simple steps solve problems and lear stuff bertter than those that don't. Simple is better. If you do the Auto-Rx treatment the noise should not hurt anything while your cleaning it out, turn up the radio.

 

[DOHCtor]

Well the car is a 1995 model year and has over 180 000 miles... The noise (Lash Adjusters noise actually!!) is present only when the car is cold and is not occuring every day. I also tried to clean my lifters with a bottle of Bardahl stuff and really didn't help... The oil pressure at idle (600Rpm) is 41psi so i guess the oil pump is okay! I tried various oil brands as well without significant results... Thuesday, i will change my oil pan anyway so i guess i will do my best to check the internals at the same time... The oil i'm gonna use afterwhile is going to be some Amsoil AFF powersport 0w40 (with wich i have had great results in the past in my dad's Sunfire Ecotec as well as in my last Neon) as well as a Napa Gold Filter. Then i'm gonna know if thicker oil is helping...

One thing bizzare about this motor, by the way, is that it's not consuming oil at all for the first 3000km after an oil change. But litterally burns all the oil in the sump after about 500km past that 3000km mark... maybe the additives gets depleted at about 3000km, the oil become too thin and then, evaporate in my sump or pass through rings and valves seals and into combustion chambers ..?? I really don't know...

That oil is Valvoline Maxlife 5w30 BTW!

 

[DOHCtor]

Oil pressure is actually 21Psi at 600Rpm not 41... (My mistake!)

I did change the oil pan sooner tonight (finally...) and there was a lot of debris in the pump strainer, as well as a lot of sludge! So i opened up the Oil pick-up tube like that...

http://www.thedodgegarage.com/turbo/oil_pickup.jpg

So far it seems good. But i guess i'm gonna see sometime later... Did also put that Amsoil 0w40 AFF i had lying at my place along with a new filter (Napa Gold!). Car runs smoother and seems to accelerate better too, as of fuel economy, i'm gonna see later too...

 

[gtx510]

Mazda HLA's get plugged up pretty easily. Sometimes thicker oils help with the clatter sounds (30wt is a range, there's thicker and thinner 30 wt oils). Sometimes a thinner (when cold) oil like 5W30 (or 0W30) helps with the start-up noise.

600rpm idle is a bit low, it should be 8-900rpm's. That could help a little.

You can take apart the older HLA's and clean them but I think you've got the newer versions and I haven't been able to pull those apart. All Mazda DOHC B, F, and K-series motors use the same size HLA's, just some are newer designs.

And www.auto-rx.com might help.

 

[DOHCtor]

Finally the oil did help but only a little.... it seems like i'm gonna have to use that kind of stuff but i don't know where to find it here in Quebec... don't have it at any Canadian tire store for sure... Unfortunately....

Marko!