Brief Duration Rattle/Tick Noise During Engine Warm-Up
Greetings diag.net
The Tundra in question here exhibits a rattle/tick noise during engine warm-up. Symptom duration is a few minutes or so, and the symptom is not audible until the engine has partially warmed up. I'd say the symptom starts maybe 2-3 minutes after a cold start.
I am not the owner of this video (even though that video's owner is another Andrew M!), but the noise in this video is exactly the same, or at least close, to what I heard.
The noise(s) I'm referring to start in the video at 00:25.
I mention noise(s) because there are actually two, and they come and go together. You can probably hear from the video that there is a lighter, sporadic tap or tick noise that comes and goes, and there is a deeper groan noise that comes and goes with it. This matches what I heard with my ears and with the stethoscope.
I'm pretty confident that the noises are coming from the front of the driver's side bank. I can pick them up well by placing a stethoscope lead on the front of the driver's side valve cover.
I found that by actuating the driver's VVT gears, I can consistently make the noises go away. I'm curious as to whether this is sufficient grounds to pin the noises to one of these assemblies.
A few questions then. Thank you in advance for the help:
1. When you suspect a VVT actuator noise, if the noise is affected by commanding the actuator position to shift, is that sufficient to pin the noise to that actuator? Could actuator movement affect a noise elsewhere?
2. If a VVT actuator is responsible for a rattle (and this assuming that base oil pressure is healthy, and the actuator is receiving sufficient oil volume and pressure), are there any cost, reliability, or potential damage implications to leaving it alone? For example, in this case, the symptom duration is short, and there are no related DTC's.
3. Can I get any specific product knowledge here? I'm not looking for a "silver bullet," but I'm definitely interested in refining test techniques and better understanding this system. I work on Toyota's regularly, but this is the first time I've encountered this specific symptom (on a Toyota or any other vehicle for that matter.) I've done quite a bit of reading and research already, and it does appear that these Toyota 5.7L engines are prone to a noise developing on the driver's side. (I'm not sure how many are affected though...)
Again, thank you in advance. I hope this post just might be helpful as more of these trucks find their way into independent facilities.
If the oil control valves can be removed easily, maybe swap driver’s side valves with the passenger side and see if the noise moves. Sometimes those valves can get stuck in the valve covers and the solenoid can break off of the valve, so be careful. engine Oil level good? Oil change history ok? Other than that, I’d watch scan data and compare both sides.
Good morning Benjamin, thank you for the reply. Thank you for the thought about swapping the oil control valve positions; I hadn't thought of that yet. Yes, the oil level is good. Changed recently with 0w20. I can't speak to previous oil change history given that the truck is a recent purchase. Regarding scan data, yes, I should recheck there when I get the truck back. I did not see any VVT…
I had a same year tundra recently that had start up noise similar to yours. Oil change history was terrible. Flushed oil repeatedly and it actually worked...something to keep in mind.
Thank you for this input, Elias. I'm not optimistic in this case given that the oil has been recently changed, with 0w20, and the noise is only happening on one bank. That being said, I have not had valve covers off and cannot speak (yet) concerning whether there is any sludge present. With the vehicle being a recent purchase, we're never going to know what the previous oil change history looked…
Hi Andrew: I'm not sure if this will help you but I found the concept interesting. (I saw this a few months ago while viewing one of Dmitriy's videos.) youtube.com/watch?v=p_vm… Guido
I am grateful for the feedback I received and hoping to see this truck back soon so that I can both get to the bottom of this issue and update accordingly. Thank you.