I have a 87 300d and a 93 300d the 87 has 147,000 miles and the 93 has 170,000 but the 93 is much quieter I am curious to see if i put some lifter cleaner in from liqui moly if that will help it. You can see the oil up top but it sound very dry to me but on a diesel I am not sure how a dirty lifter sounds thanks again Peter

The 603 can suffer from ticking lifters on occasion. The best solution has been the use of synthetic oil for 10,000 miles or more. I've nearly ended the ticking on the '86 after 30K on Rotella syn. Mobil-1 is touted to be even better for this purpose........although it's costly.

I replaced all of mine, and have been running Delvac 1 on short changes. They still tick a bit when I get on it, more so when its hot 1k-1,500 rpm range seems to be the worst. Its not loud like before, and its not at idle, but its most certainly their. I'm out of ideas I did everything, I'm just going to ignore it.

I think 603's just do it, my broker drives an SDL as well and it makes the same noise. 603's just seem to have loud top ends.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

If you are sure it is lifters fine. If any suspicion it is something else just run the engine on an alternative fuel for about 1/2 hour. You should have a pretty clear picture as the other engine noises lessen on the alternative fuels like vegatable oil or a can of diesel purge. Yet if lifter noise it will remain constant.

My 602 and 603 IMO have the same amount of lifter noise, nearly none.

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Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

I had my lifter replaced when they started ticking incessantly at about 220,000 miles or so. You could tell there were multiple bad lifters and it got to the point where I figured, hey, these things aren't going to heal themselves, and since I plan to keep the car for as long as it'll run, I might as well put new ones in and be done with it. Car is so quiet now I can't believe it sometimes.

That said, I may have opted not to get them replaced had I not been planning to keep the car for a long time. It was fairly costly, but not when you consider that, in theory, I could get another 200k miles out of the things. But if you don't want to spend a lot on the car, I'd go with the synthetic oil and just put up with the ticky tacky noises. I think a lot of 603s have them ... a lot of 603 owners here have had them, and sometimes I hear ticky 603s when I'm out running near traffic (I always keep an ear out for interesting diesels).

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1987 300D, arctic white/palomino--314,000 miles
1978 240D 4-speed, Euro Delivery, light ivory/bamboo--370,000 miles
2005 Jeep Liberty CRD Limited, light khaki/slate--140,000 miles
2018 Chevy Cruze diesel, 6-speed manual, satin steel metallic/kalahari--19,000 miles
1982 Peugeot 505 diesel, 4-speed manual, blue/blue, 130,000 miles
1995 S320, black/parchment--34,000 miles (Dad's car)

Yes it must be the lifters i just changed the fuel filter and filled it with diesel purge and the noise is still there but for a diesel it is quite fast thanks for the help

How's the hood pad?

__________________

Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

If you know what they sound like, lifters and injection related noises sound quite different.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200