Not too long ago I adjusted my valves and took a 300mile trip. and I noticed a tick afterwards. The sound seems to come from cylinder 1,
so i thought injector knock, I swaped injectors no change then i swaped injectors between the engine the noise still stays in one place.
Next I check the valves again exhaust valve #1 was a little tight but the rest were good. still no change.
When starting, I noticed after the trip the car is harder to start. and I see a plumb of smoke when starting the car.
could the noise be from a bad manifold gasket? stuck egr?
The car runs fine has regular oil pressure and temp is also normal.

VID 20120422 00001 - YouTube and VID 20120418 00000 - YouTube
heres a video of the engine running. The vibration is my air filter the T bracket broke.

Responses are appreciated.

I also forgot to mention that the noise goes away when i crack the #1 injector line. could it be a bad prechamber?

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1974 240d
1983 240d -sold
1989 420sel with om606
1994 s350 turbodiesel - sold

Why do I have the sense that the valve cover hasn't been off that engine in 10 years................??

Lol do i have to clean and polish my valve cover for some help?

The outside is in better shape

http://s1157.photobucket.com/albums/p592/dieseler1/?action=view&current=Maine-20120314-00061.jpg#!oZZ2QQcurrentZZhttp%3A%2F%2Fs1157.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fp592%2Fdieseler1%2F%3Faction %3Dview%26current%3DMaine-20120314-00059.jpg
http://s1157.photobucket.com/albums/p592/dieseler1/?action=view&current=Maine-20120314-00061.jpg#!oZZ1QQcurrentZZhttp%3A%2F%2Fs1157.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fp592%2Fdieseler1%2F%3Faction %3Dview%26current%3DMaine-20120314-00061.jpg

The last 32secs of the longer video shows the noise the best.

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1974 240d
1983 240d -sold
1989 420sel with om606
1994 s350 turbodiesel - sold

My reference was more toward the last time the valves were adjusted???

Have you listened around the Engine with a Mechanics Stethoscope (cheap at Harbor Freight) or a stick or something?

I had the uppermost Sheet Metal Timing Chain Guide Rattle. Tightening up the Bolt cured that.
There is too many things that can rattle to narrow it down.
In a thread today I read that someones Crank Damper rattled. I had that happen on a Gasoline Engine and could not pick it as the cause of the sound.
I found it was loose when I was in the process of removing it to check the Timing Chain (this was on a Oldamobile Engine). Where sounds come from is very elusive.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

Brian- i mentioned in the 1st post that i adjusted the valves before the trip and then i checked them recently again.

911- i think the tick is cylinder 1 area related, since when i crack the injector line the noise goes away. I wanted to know any ideas

How do i know if a manifold gasket goes bad? what kind of noise goes with that? or how do i know if a prechamber is bad?

I looked at the timing chain when i checked the valves and it seemed fine.

__________________
1974 240d
1983 240d -sold
1989 420sel with om606
1994 s350 turbodiesel - sold

Yep, you did.

If the injector affects the noise, then it's a simple case of injector knock at idle. The noise disappears as the rpm's come up.

You can do a lot of chasing to find it...........or just ignore it. It won't hurt anything.

I switched the injector a few times to see if it was injector knock. the noise never moved or stopped.

__________________
1974 240d
1983 240d -sold
1989 420sel with om606
1994 s350 turbodiesel - sold

Injector "knock" is a term that references a specific sound cause by incomplete combustion. It is not definitely related to any specific piece of hardware. The phenomenon can be caused by the injector, the prechamber, the piston, or any other component that is part of the combustion process. It therefore makes isolation of the culprit quite difficult, and, typically not worthwhile because the engine can run perfectly fine despite the injector knock.

Oh, i never knew that.

well that sucks. The knock is pretty annoying, lol my 240s sound smoother.

Is there any other cheap or easy stuff i can check?

How could i check a prechamber? i got some spare prechambers, but the job doesn't sound easy and I don't want to replace a good part.

Could this knock be from bad fuel?

Thanks for the Info.

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1974 240d
1983 240d -sold
1989 420sel with om606
1994 s350 turbodiesel - sold

The prechamber has a distribution "ball" that is suspended on a shaft. They sometimes come apart and the ball is sitting at the bottom of the prechamber. This would absolutely cause an injector knock.

Bad fuel could also cause such a knock, but the fact that it's only on one cylinder makes it unlikely.

You might run a can or two of diesel purge through the IP to see if any carbon deposits are causing the issue. Some folks swear by it and other diss it just as severely.

I checked for the ball at the Prechamber before the purge and its there.

The injector didn't have this much carbon when i put it in before.

http://s1157.photobucket.com/albums/p592/dieseler1/?action=view¤t=Addison-20120424-00113.jpg

I did a purge and Italian tune up and the car was happy and i was surprised at how quiet the car was.

until I hooked up the hoses back to the fuel tank and the car was loud again...but smoother and quiet at higher rpm than when it was before purge. but at idle its still knocking.

During the purge my car sounded like this '82 mercedes benz 300d start up and idle after engine rebuild. - YouTube

After i hooked up the hoses my car sounds like this car when its knocking. 1982 300D rebuilt idle - no more knocking! - YouTube

Maybe the fuel is bad since when running on the purge the car sounded like a new car without the knock, but back to diesel it was a tractor with the knock.

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1974 240d
1983 240d -sold
1989 420sel with om606
1994 s350 turbodiesel - sold

It's not exactly proper to compare the idle on your vehicle under purge with the idle on a different vehicle without purge.

In engineering, that's a set of completely different variables and any conclusions drawn will be improper and likely to be incorrect.

How many miles do you have on this engine after installation of all the injectors and fuel lines?

188k on engine, one injector has 150k rest have the same as engine.

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1974 240d
1983 240d -sold
1989 420sel with om606
1994 s350 turbodiesel - sold

I was interested in how many miles on the engine since you reinstalled the injectors and reconnected the hard lines.