Identification of engine pieces

[Rhodie]

Hi All,

Decided to change the engine oil today. Ran the 200Tdi motor for 15 min to warm her up and then removed the sump drain plug. Waited till the last drips were becoming painfully slow before i decided to stick my finger into the hole to see if there was much sludge around. I discovered something worse than sludge!

On some old motors that i have worked on before they used to have a hardened cap that sat on top of the push rod that road against the cam. This is what it looks to me but it is a wild guess as i have never opened a 200Tdi motor before. It is about 11mm dia & 3mm thich with a recess. Does anyone have a clue as to what these are? The motor runs fine and i am just wondering as to perhaps are these the remnants of a past incident? Should i strip the motor down to find out $$$$$$$

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Rhodie

[Mark]

That looks exactly like a valve stem cap - or 2... which is exactly what you have described.

At worse, you will have some extra wear on your valve stems, and your valves gaps will be somwhat in need of adjustment. To check, just take the rocker cover off, and it should be apparent which ones are missing. They are very cheap for genuine parts, so when I found mine was missing a couple I did the lot with new ones. You then need to set your tappet distances, but that is not especially taxing.

hth

Mark

[cipx2]

Yeap, valve stem caps. Part# LJC100270. Better replace all 8 of them. Hopefully you'll find the other 6 in place. Otherwise you'll have to go fishing for the missing ones.

[Les Henson]

If any of your valve caps are missing - the relevant tappet will rattle like mad (the gap will be much too big) If someone has not replaced the cap and just re-set the gap, then the tip of the valve will be hammered over (like an old chisel does). A new cap then will not fit and the valve will have to be replaced (and perhaps the rocker too, as the valve stem drills a hole in it). If a valve cap breaks or gets dropped - it ends-up in the sump, where it generally does no damage (the bits can't pass through the oil strainer), and may have been in there for years.

Les.

[JimAttrill]

I've had a few where the top goes missing, leaving a ring behind on the valve. As the valve gap is now about .9mm I could hear strange chuffing noises coming out of the air intake. I heard there were bad batches of them made, so replaced the whole lot. They are one of the few cheap genuine parts

[Rhodie]

I've had a few where the top goes missing, leaving a ring behind on the valve. As the valve gap is now about .9mm I could hear strange chuffing noises coming out of the air intake. I heard there were bad batches of them made, so replaced the whole lot. They are one of the few cheap genuine parts

Thanks All,

I'm in the process of replacing the timing belt so it's a good opportunity to check them out in the process. Hopefully the wear isn't too bad if they havent been replaced.

[Richard Mills]

Hi There,

It might be that they are all there and intact. Because the person who did them last time just did not flush the bits out of the sump.

Any more bits might come out with one of those magnetic pick up things and a round of flushing oil.

Good luck.