P38 4.6: Tappet rattle on start up since oil change

malcolm_durant said:

Evening All,

A couple of weeks ago I flushed and changed the absolutely filthy oil on my 1995 P38 4.6 for some nice new decent 10w-40 semi-synthetic.

Ever since, I've noticed that for about 5 seconds after a totally cold start up there is a noisy tappet. It subsides quickly and won't tick for the rest of the day, even if the car is left for a couple of hours.

For reference the engine is a Land Rover replacement that has seemingly done about 60k (ie. not high mileage) but the last owner probably didn't change the oil for about 2.5 years.

I know the tappets on these are hydraulic, so was thinking of changing the oil again and chucking in some 10w-40 diesel oil (more detergents) for a longer, more gentle scrub of the oily bits.

This is something (using diesel oil for a few hundred miles and then going back to the correct oil) I've seen recommended elsewhere several times and it worked a treat on my T16 powered Rover 800 a couple of years ago when that hinted at becoming noisy.

However the reason why I'm posting is that I used a Britpart oil filter rather than an OEM or branded one (it was certainly smaller than the Coopers (?) one I took off.

Could the cheap oil filter have some bearing on the tappet noise?

Thanks!

Malcolm

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ex darksider said:

if you got hydraulic LIFTERS they may need bleeding most bmw petrols need this after an oil change,run car at 3/4 of what she'll rev to in neutral for 5 minutes repeat i nequired,used to work on a 328i i used to have and got this info from a bmw forum were a dealer had uploaded info sent to them from germant,apparently it was also common on cars that were'nt driven hard enough(good old bmw)

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