Rattly hydraulic lash adjusters - J-Car engine.

[Shannow]

Both my Dad and sister have Nissan Pulsars fitted with the 1800cc J-Car engine (Nissan and G.M. made a reasonably good car with these).

Dad's has 275,000 km on Mobil 1.

Sis' car has 160,000 km on whatever the dealer put in for the first 2 years, then I think Dad's using castrol. 10,000km oil changes. But sis is in a wheelchair, so there is a LOT of very short trips in the thing.

Guy over the road brought it to her attention that the tappets were very very noisy, so she took it to the dealer, who "flushed" it (I know nothing about what they used), and the rattle is gone. Wish they'd rung first, as it's within the period that I've known about this board.

I reckon she needs further and ongoing cleaning rather than a one-off bomb.

Any ideas ?
Switch to Delvac 1300 super for a while ?

 

[Ray H]

I'll take a chance and suggest not to worry about your sister's car. At 160,000 km (96,000 miles - I'll never get used to the metric system - I refuse! Congress will pry "miles" out of my cold, dead brain over my dead body!), it sounds like she had some sticky lifters and the flush freed them up. With her short trip driving, varnish deposits around the valves and lifters at are a definite liklihood. If her car isn't using an unusual amount of oil, any decent current detergent oil in the proper weight range should have her good to go for a long time to come. Maybe change the current fill/filter out at half the usual interval, and then another fill/filter change out at the the normal projected mileage (kilometer-age?) as a feel-good factor that all the crap that was loosened by the flush is finally out of the sump.