Ticking noise coming from Engine

[Redassassin]

My engine is a stock standard 1300 that had been sitting for an unknown amount of time as the one originally in the car had a run big end bearing. This engine doesn't seem to smoke at all and runs quite nicely considering, only issue (besides the ticking) is that it has a small oil leak.

When cold you can barely hear the ticking noise but once the engine has warmed up to temp the ticking noise is quite noticeable. The higher the revs the louder/faster the ticking noise becomes. My friends are convinced that its one of the tappets but putting a stethoscope to the top of the rocker cover doesn't help pin point which one and we have set the valve lash again and again and again... I have a spare head that just needs to have the valves cleaned up and skimmed, but am unsure whether this will fix the issue, has anybody else had this problem?

[oldschool]

The valves clearances need to be set hot...I use 10 thou inlet and 15 thou exhaust.
The correct method is..

No 1 valves rocking...set No 4
No 2 valves rocking...set No 3
No 3 valves rocking...set No 2
No 4 valves rocking...set No 1

If still ticking the rockers may need refacing.

[Paddy75]

No.4 exhaust valve could be slightly bent. Does the ticking get louder as you load the engine, give it the boot going uphill and if the tap gets louder then likely its the No.4 exhaust valve flapping about. Every Avenger head I've taken apart has a problem with the No.4 exhaust valve (about 4 or 5 of them I've taken apart for a guy who has a few Avenger engines in his barn). Pull the spark plug lead away from No.4 to weaken the spark and see if the tapping stops or gets softer in note.

I have recently taken my 1300 engine apart to try to take a couple of decades off it and I fitted a set of MK2 1300 pistons, they have a slightly higher crt than the MK1. Before working on the engine there was a slight misfire, after new pistons, rings timing chain, sprockets, tensioner, main bearings, Series 7 Ducellier distributor and oil seals the slight misfire became a big vibrationary misfire.

So I did the valves only to find they are all loose and especially the No.4 exhaust valve which is bent and although grinding it with the rest gave a good seal the engine misfires after it reaches normal temperature.

The only cure is to either ream out the guides to take +15 or +30 stems or ream out and fit bronze guides.

The good news though is that after the stems are done you will have a sweet running engine and the MK2 1300 was reported to have been giving the best mpg in its class (Autocar Nov 1976), while the MK1 1300 was giving the worst mpg.
Pushrod engines will need the stems done eventually. (unless they are alloy heads, which already has guides and hardened seats fitted. Likely why the Renault ohv engines could do 200k+ miles although the electrics and suspension parts were rubbish - as I heard a few times in the 1980's and 90's, ''..the Avenger didn't do that..'' afer your R18 ate the same wishbone bush within 6 months. Or broke the rear springs again.)

Apparently the Avenger engine was designed to be taken all the way to OHC. If Chrysler Europe spent the money that was wasted developing the Simca derived C180/2l OHC engine, on taking the Avenger engine to OHC then its possible that the Avenger could have been a Corolla beater.
An 1800 OHC Avenger or Hunter and if it was crossflowed alloy that would have wiped out the Ford Pinto engine, been equal or more than anything Toyota or Datsun were doing and probabbly have been as spirited as a Fiat engine. Ohh Chrysler! They just did not realize how close they were to having a world beater!
I read on ASOC that there is a guy running a project to fit a BMW head to an Avenger block, dunno how thats progressing.

[blekkja]

Didn't the avenger motored hunters being sold as taxis in Iran have OHC heads?

[NZTiger]

Iranian  Avenger engine had Alloy head and fuel injection.

As well at the "Hunter" it was also used in a RWD Peugeot 405 they made which also had a  5 speed box (a development of a Hunter box I think from a pic I saw...)

[JoKer]

I follow a few Iranian car feeds on the ol' Instagram #Paykan or #peykan_lovers seems to be their handles & such

Hunters feature mostly and sometimes Avengers

[Redassassin]

All sorted. I got my spare cylinder head skimmed and cleaned with new head gasket etc. and put that on. Looks like No. 2 and No. 3 valves were "leaking" on the old head. did some cleaning while I had the head off too as the top of the pistons had some nasty carbon buildup, No. 4 was by far the worst. The coolant holes were pretty badly clogged too. The engines running really smooth now, the new head dropped the idle from 850rpm to just below 500rpm. Step dad seems to think its probably because the new head has given more compression haha. Only issue seems to be that it has started to smoke a bit, it doesn't always smoke just sometimes after its been running a while or sometimes starting it when warm. Is this just a wearing in of the new head issue, or something a little more serious?

[oldschool]

Cylinder head work that increases compression loads up the rings more and can cause oil burning and fuming in tired engines.
Dark hard carbon deposits on pistons are a sign of oil burning. Normal grey carbon deposits come off easily.

[Redassassin]

Bugger, might have to look into some oil additives for ring seal for now. Now that I've been driving her for a couple of days I've noticed a couple more issues that have popped up. While the car overall is running ALOT better, Its become really hard to start sometimes, like sometimes when i get it running the choke seems to be doing nothing and the car cant even idle high enough to be at 800rpm and just dies. I have to have my foot on the accelerator to keep in running and then after a few seconds it comes right, this isn't an issue at full temp . The choke and idle seem to be really far out, choke doesn't work anywhere near as well as it did and the idle is all over the place. sometimes i'll stop at lights and it'll be idling at 800rpm, other times 1000rpm (choke off ofcourse) and it looks like its "flucuating" i.e. the rev needle is slightly moving up and down where it did not do this before. Could the new head have thrown the tune out that badly? Is it possibly just running rich or lean? I had a shop tune it last time as they can do a far better job at it than I ever could. I have yet to recheck the head bolts and reset the valves again as I've just been way to busy with work etc. Could it just be an issue with the valve timing? It sounds like its running really well at temp.

[Redassassin]

Been talking to my step dad quite a bit and hes convinced the carb is just running far too rich. So I'm going to do some reading on a tuning guide tomorrow and have a crack at tuning it myself, Hopefully all goes well