Ticking Tappets

[Fetta GTV]

Hi All

My Sprint(1986) is making a ticking sound in the left hand side head, much louder than the right side, sound very much like tappet clearance.
Does the 1.5 twin carb have hydraulic or mechanical tappets? and how easy is it to service or replace?
The noise is from cold and does not change as engine warms up.
Car does not get driven on the road at the moment, I start it up occasionally and drive it up and down the driveway (its a reasonable long driveway)

Thanks
DAvid

[colcol]

The Alfasud twin carb 1500cc engine had adjustable tappets, they had a twin cam lobe, and to adjust the clearance, you use an appropriate pin punch to 'lock' the tappet bucket, to stop it from turning, and then you put a allen key in the tappet and turn the grub screw to achieve the tappet clearance, on the twin carb 33's, they used solid shims to achieve the tappet clearances, to change the shim is difficult without the proper tools, but if you buy a Fiat X19 tappet depressor, this will help, although you will have to modify it to work, what you do is rotate the engine, so the cam lobe is pointing away from the tappet, depress the cam bucket, flip the shim out measure it and get the replacement shim, the first 200 1.7 twin carb 33's had solid shim tappets, the cars following that had hydraulic tappets, that have a sealed tappet cover, because adjustment is not needed, Colin.

[Fetta GTV]

Thanks for the reply Colin
I will have to pull off the covers and have a look, Hopefully its the easily adjustable type.
I went to take the covers off  while ago but after undoing the 4 bolts I could not get the covers off.
Looks like someone has used some type of very permanent adhesive to stick the gasket, no amount of pulling would make them come loose and I was a bit hesitant to stick a blade in the gasket to cut it off.

[colcol]

Give the tappets covers a bit of a tap with a soft rawhide mallet, tap it up and down and from side to side and you will work it loose, i have found that you don't need any type of sealant on the tappet cover, just torque the bolts up to about 7-10 lbs per sqaure inch, and keep doing it as the gasket settles, i used 2 gaskets for about 15 years and they kept sealing ok, and that was me checking the tappets every year, and while you have the tappet cover off, retorque your cylinder heads, back off the bolts slightly and retorque them to the specifications in your workshop manual, retorque them every year and you won't have leaky cylinder head gaskets, Colin.

[colcol]

Its all coming back to me, doing the tappets in a Alfasud, you suck all the oil out of the cam housing with a oil gun, the type you fill up your gearbox with, put the car in 5th gear, take the spark plugs out and push it forwards or backwards, so that the 2 tappets you are doing have the cam lobes pointing away from the tappets next you rotate the 2 tappets so that the 2  cutouts in the tappet buckets are facing each other, then you put an appropriate sized pin punch in the 2 cutouts to stop them rotating, then put an allen key in the tappet bucket to turn the adjusting grubscrew, anti clockwise for more clearance, clockwise for less clearance, then take the pin punch out and rotate engine to check clearances, if i remember correctly the clearances are .012-.014 inch for inlets and .018-.020 inch for exhausts, but check your manual first for clearances for your car, some times if you have the right socket or ring spanner, you can put it on the crankshaft and rotate your engine this way, although air conditioning and air pumps will impede access, you also may have to use a cut down allen key to get to tappet bucket ,Colin.

[Fetta GTV]

Finally got around to getting the cover off and checking my clearances
My Sprint has the single cam lobes and shim adjustment, does that make it the 105hp version?
Some of the clearances are slightly under the correct setting so I will order some shims and set them properly
Would being under cause the ticking more so than being over?

[colcol]

The shims vs adjustable tappets is more a Sud vs 33 thing, adjustables for Suds, nice and easy to adjust, but the cams run off the buckets causing wear, shims for 33's, real pain to do without proper tools, but will last for years before another adjustment, and cam doesn't run off bucket, i find with my 33, check them about every 2 years or so, always 3 need doing, 5 are ok, and all different ones, go figure, the shims are the same as Volkswagon Golf / Passat 73 onwards and are available easily at the old school Volkswagon specialists, never have much luck at Alfa places, they never seem to have any, the shims are made by German fastener \ manufacturer WURTH, sometimes you can get them directly off them, you may wish to check all your clearances, go round all your tappets, remove the shim and measure it, record it, as sometimes you can swap them round to get the correct clearances, you can use a Fiat X19 tappet depressor, and modify it to suit a 33, and to remove the shim, you need a jewellers screwdriver, put in the slot of the bucket to move the shim out, and a powerfull magnet to pull the shim out of the bucket, and use the magnet to pick up the shim when it falls under the cam, they run quite when the clearances are correct, Colin.