Hi everyone,

Although my 1998 Vanden Plas is still running great at 148,000 miles, I have a couple of concerns about the engine.
The first is, it burns oil when going up a long enough hill, you can smell it from inside.
I'm going through quite a bit of oil, a quart every 900 miles or so. I have looked around the engine for leaks and did not see any. Last time I took it in for an oil change, I asked about it, and they said that the bottom of the pan was dry. And a quart every 1,000 miles or less is nothing out of the ordinary. I've been using 20w50 for the past 3+ years.

And more recently, and maybe related but maybe not, I've noticed a slight ticking noise. It's most noticeable on a cold start, but I can also hear it when I park. The first video is of a cold start (with some revving at the end) and the second video is after some driving.


What do you guys think... piston slap? VVT? The previous owner put the upgraded timing chain tensioners in many years ago.

 

Those rattles aren't good; comes close to rod knock, although it quiets down some in the second video. The first thing I would do would be to pull the oil pan and filter to check for metal shavings. Pulling the pan is easier than removing a valve cover and you could rule out the rod knock if there are is no metal.

 

This may be unrelated to the noise(or it might be, given that the noise is louder when the engine is cold) but 20w50 viscosity is far too heavy for these engines, even at that mileage. Is there a reason why you are not using the normally specified 5w30 weight or even 10w40?

 

Yes, that was the recommendation of a Jaguar specialist that I took it to, before I moved.

 

I'm going to have the oil pan looked at asap. Thank you for your response, @hispeed42 .

Could the noise be coming from an exhaust leak? Perhaps a crack in the manifold?

 

I took it into the shop today. They said that the rods and the exhaust are both fine, and that the noise is very clearly coming from the timing chain covers, an upper/secondary tensioner that has come loose.
Last time I had this looked at was almost 4 years ago, and the shop (this was when I lived in San Diego) said that it has the upgraded metal tensioners... apparently they're not perfect either.

I guess I'll have to bring a timing chain kit to whatever shop that I can find that will take this on... my question now is, where can I buy the upgraded kit, as well as any special bolts and tools that they might need?

 

The tensioner kit is available now on Partsgeek.com
I bought a pretty good kit recently from Welsh Enterprises.
The cam lockdown tools and crank holding tool are pretty easy to get on eBay.