Non-928 question
 

Have a questions about my daily driver and figured that you guys could help me decide what to do. I have a 99 Dodge Avenger v6 with about 175k miles. In the spring I will be tearing into the car to replace the timing belt and water pump and associated bits and I'm wondering how far into the motor I should go. Over the past year the car has developed a rather loud lifter tick. Even with a quart of marvel mystery oil in my oil it has not quieted. So my question is should I take the heads off and refresh them since I will have the timing belt off anyways? I really like the car and want to keep it running for a while. I just worry about this lifter.

Thanks ahead of time guys. I just tend to trust the advice here more than I would going to some other car forum.

Brad, I love the Mopars. My niece also has a Dodge Avenger that my brother maintains. Personally, I like saving cars even if it's not worth the price. You might find that a replacement salvage engine would be cheaper. As far as forums go, I used to be an active member of Allpar and strongly recommend it. They are good, helpful people. I say go for it.

Well the timing belt kit only costs around $190 and that is with a water pump and new rollers. I figure the head gasket kit would only cost me about $100-150 or so(haven't priced it yet) and that should include new valve guides and such. The motor runs strong. I just don't know what I will find once I take the valve covers off and look into the heads. Maybe I could just take the cams out and clean them and the lifters w/o removing the heads?

A guy I work with had the same car and a similar noise. It was something in the valvetrain (like a sensor attachment) that broke. He kept driving it and destoyed the motor over a relatively simple fix.... so you may not want to keep driving it. Niles is right too. A replacement swap motor was pretty cheap too.

Hmmmm... I will keep this in mind. It comes and goes but it's loudest when the car is cold. I think I will be taking the valve covers off to inspect and will look for something like that. Car is starting to leak a bit of oil and I be it's from the valve covers.

I remember old skool engines that used lifters used to cause a ticking noise due to oil not being brought up top. If you could find a cutout of that engine, it would probably be easy to figure out. I agree with Niles, those specialty forums for Mopar should get you in the right direction.

This would be the forum: AllparForums: Avenger, 200, Sebring, Cirrus, Stratus, Breeze - Allpar, the Chrysler Car Community

Thank you for that link. Clicked, registered, and posted! :cool:

However, It doesn't appear to be a really active forum. Hoping for good answers though.

Have you tried Swepco 502? Greg from the other board swears by it, and says that he has never had to deal with a stuck lifter.

After using you have to change the oil soon, because the Swepco will have dislodged so much junk from your engine that you will want to.

It is pretty hard to find... but I believe Pelican has it!

I have not. May have to look around for it locally. It would need to make some drastic changes to make me not want to go ahead and refresh the heads while doing the t-belt. They aren't hard to do and since the belt will be off already that is why I'm tempted to just do it.

Pete, since this is a Dodge thread already, how is the Neon?
You doing anything exciting with it since you got it?

So far no replies on that board. =(

Was that a turbo SRT neon?

If you like the car and want to keep a while, I would go with finding a good low mileage motor in a junk yard and doing the refresh on it, then do a quick swap when you are ready to tear into your car. You take a lot of miles off cheaply that way.

I don't know your motor though, does it have an unusually long service life without the need for increasing the bore and going to next size pistons etc?

Where am i?

Brad, one of my Ford work trucks (F-150, 4.6L V8 w/220k miles) always lets me know when it would like it's oil changed (lifter tick at start up)
when i change the oil it goes away for a few thousand miles.
It has never gotten worse and runs fine. This isn't much help i know but does an oil change quiet it?

-Matt

That may not be an oil change, but an oil filter change replacing a leaking back flow valve.

lol, Im in NH, it's sitting on a trailer waiting for a clutch. I just need to throw a couple gauges in it, mount my racing seat and be ready for the first track day.. I think it's in April. We pretty much shut it down in the NE for a few months. It gives our bank accounts a chance to recover :D

yup, not street legal, It's never seen the road, only 6200 miles on it. It went around the block real quick but I'm pretty excite to drive it this spring

I have thought about this. But when I was at the junk yard a few weeks ago to replace the door on this car there were not many of the v6 models there. (Car was backed into when parked and they just drove off.) Bunches of 4cyl versions though.

That sounds like a blast!!! The only neon I had was a regular old beater 99 2d that I rebuilt the top of the motor. Currently selling that car to a good friend.

Brad, for what it's worth, I talked to my brother about his daughter's '99 Avenger. it also has the 2.5 liter V-6. He had researched the issue of the ticking sound. His research suggested that it was a common ailment of the motor and not likely to cause a problem. This also suggests a salvage motor is not likely to be an improvement. I hope you keep it.

Thanks for that Niles. I am keeping it for sure. I love the car, especially for what I paid for it. Big improvement over my 99 2d Neon for sure. I just ordered the parts for the timing belt and water pump job for this spring. Pretty sure it hasn't been done in over 100k miles, maybe more. The belt is showing some small cracks on the top. She's just a ticking time bomb right now and I'm praying she will make it through till some warmer weather. I think I'm going to at least take the intake and valve covers off to assess everything and make sure there is no obvious issues/damage but will hold off on taking the heads off. Maybe... At that point I'm just a few bolts from them being off so I don't know. Just depends on money at the time.