Recently I swapped out my radiator and serpentine belt on my 97 xk8. Upon the first startup afterwards, I started getting a rhythmic, almost click click click click click click that the best that I can tell is coming from the right side vvt! It stops after a few seconds and doesn't come back until the engine cools down. I have yet to try pulling my serpentine belt to see if it does it with the belt off. I also noticed that my steering seems a bit "notchy" and the one time I listened closer I thought it sounded kinda like a "click fsssss click fsssss click fsssss". I took a picture of the old serpentine to make sure I put it on right, so that "should" be right. Any thoughts? Just to say, the timing chain tensioners were upgraded before I bought the car. Just seems odd and coincidental that it started doing it immediately after doing the work.

 

Time isrelative,

Strange coincidence! Most cars I had, they made tick, tick, clicking noises upon start up, or cool down, because of heat shields. First thing I would do is check the heat shields. One may be loose especially on the right side under the air tunnel. If it didn’t’t make the noises before, you may have bent one while doing the recent work.

Worth a quick check.

Also when I did work on the cooling system before, the VVT connector broke inside. Looked fine externally but inside the connector the plastic was shot so didn’t hold the pins together. That’s also worth a check

 

I'm pretty mechanically inept so this may be way off base but I had a funny ticking sound from the front of the engine 2 years ago that went away after the engine warmed up and it was an accessory belt tensioner pulley. The mechanic misted the various pulleys with some water with the engine running to find the faulty one, replaced it and the car has purred like a kitten ever since.

 

Yeah it's definitely not like a heat shield heating up sound. It's very clearly heard from the inside when you first start the car. Maybe I should have said more like a clack clack clack clack clack clack clack clack clack with about a constant one second space between clacks. I'll try unplugging my vvt and see if it makes any change. Not sure exactly how the vvt even works on these really. Maybe I'll get to tinker with it in the next couple days.

Part of me wondered about one of the pulleys, kinda like maybe the new belt was actually just that much tighter that it made one start acting up

 

Good idea to check the various pulleys....

 

I'm guessing that it takes a full second for the belt to make one "lap" around the pulleys. I'm suspecting the belt or something related. My .02.