motor tick?

how common is a motor tap for mazdas? i found a xcab in maryland, not far from me w 117k on it. its on mautofied if you want to check it out. and if it is a valve tap, how hard is that to fix? just curious, i dont know ANYTHING about mazdas, ive never owned a foreign car in my life.

heres the add. it looks to be in good condition. he said its pretty straight. just needs carpet, and i think exhaust. im pretty sure he said the front is bagged.

and im not sure if this is the right forum for this, if not the mods can move it.

its fine here if you want help with figuring out what could be wrong with the engine.
it will tap if their are problems with the pistons. so it could be seals, or just something like not having enough oil to keep it lubricated. depends on how bad it is.

he says its not a bad tap, just a light tick.. lol if that makes sense.

but the front is bagged, the only thing it needs is an exhaust and carpet.

lifters can get out of tune .. thus creating tapin noise. OR it could be just that it don't have enough oil . sounds like a easy fix tho if its a problem with the lifters taping . take the valve cover off and tighten em put a new gasket on and put the cover on again. .. About an hours work or so.

this guy on here by the screen name pont knows a bit about that i think he's done his . shoot him a pm if he don't see this thread.

sum info i copied from another forum .that may be useful.


Well many people read the old spec of .012" for lash, which was only for the older trucks.The 86-93 trucks should be set at .008" and I like to set mine at .006". You might be able to get away with setting the intake at .005" and the exhaust at .006"

If you set them that low after I adjusted all 8 I would crank the engine over 2 or 3 times by hand, or take the negative wires off the ignition coil to disable the ignition and turn it a few times with the starter, then check all your lash again. It is very easy to have one or two rocker arms accidently set a few thousanths too much which will cause them to make a lot more noise.

Thicker oil will help to quiet them. Most places I recommend running 10w-40 or 20w-50 in summer for the truck anyways. The thinner oil just seems to turn to water and considering how old most of these engines are isn't enough.

read this link as well.

Those intake and exhaust lash adjustment gap specs are for mechanical lifters. The hydraulic lifters are not adjustable. They get noisy when the hydraulic lash adjusters get dirty and the ball check valve gets stuck not allowing oil to pressurize them and remove the lash.
Sometimes, adding 1 quart of ATF to motor oil will clean the lifters due to high detergent additives in ATF. Drive it until the next oil change. If the ATF trick does not work, you have to pull the rocker assembly and shafts to get those HLAs out for cleaning. You can do this with the motor in the truck.
Once you get them out, try to squeeze them. If you can squeeze them, it is not getting filled with oil due to a stuck ball check valve inside the top hole.
You can try cleaning them by squeezing one in between your thumb and index finger while pushing the ball check valve through the hole with a paper clip or a pin and immersing in a cleaning solvent. Do this a few times until you can see solvent getting sucked in and squirted out when you compress it while pushing the ball check valve with a pin.
If unsuccessful, it is stucjk and may need replacing. They can be expensive like $25 a piece or $200 for 8 pieces.

sounds good , thanx guys.