Hi all, After reading about all this piston slap, I started wondering about the 2.2L engine in my 2000 GMC Sonoma. It has some pretty prominent clicking when it starts up cold. Always has, and it goes away after about 2-3 minutes of driving.
I've been told this is normal, and I haven't worried about it, because I've never once heard anyone complain about piston slap in an S-10 or Sonoma.
Thoughts?
-- Tony Kimmell Towanda, IL
To email me, put a "2" after my last name in my email address.
Piston slap would never go away.
because
Sounds like the lifters. But I don't know why it would go away, AFAIK the lifters clicking stays.
rhys
"Tony Kimmell" wrote
That would be piston slap....contrary to what another poster says, piston slap noise usually goes away within a minute or two.
Your 2.2 is a slightly larger version of the 2.0 liter that used to have all sorts of piston slap problems a few years back. I used to replace tons of pistons on those engines, but mainly in the J-body cars, not the trucks. In our neck of the woods, we don't see many 4 cylinder S-trucks.
Ian
Piston slap will deminish as the engine warms up due to expansion of the piston skirt. Has anyone really seen an engine incapacitated by piston slap? Dale P...........
prominent
after
Untrue. Typically the noise that goes away after a short time is either lifters pumping up or CSK (Cold Start Knock, usually carbon buildup, Mr Goodwrench has a top engine cleaner for this, but reports are that it is frequently temporary) or something else other than piston slap.
(One form of) PS is caused by the piston skirt hitting the cylinder wall, there is no thermal movement or oil system pump-up to make the noise go away. Many say their engine sounds like a diesel rattling continuosly. PS has occurred on may types of engines by many manufacturers, GM fixed PS in some other engines by coating the pistons. There is, however, also a TSB on GenIII Chevy engines for an oil pump o-ring that can also cause *continuous* ticking.
There is alot more real world info on many of the Chevy forums, like:
about
prominent
"Markeau" wrote
You sound good, Markeau....but you really don't have too much knowledge about piston slap. How many engines have you either replaced pistons in for piston slap...or listened to in an attempt to diagnose the problem? Personally, I've probably replaced between 30-40 sets of pistons over the last couple of years, and have listened to hundreds of GM engines hammering away.
Piston slap goes away within a few minutes and "that" is considered "normal". When it "doesn't" go away in a few minutes....then you have what is considered an abnormal problem. Then it gets fixed.
The oil pump o-ring TSB is for a very specific noise, within a very specific time frame. It's fairly rare, our shop has only seen a couple of engines with this problem. We haven't seen "any" engines that have lifter noise on the GENIII small blocks. People "think" that it's lifter noise, but it's not.
By the way, the carbon treatment was an attempt by GM to pin the piston slap blame elsewhere. We did it for a while with no real results. They finally came out with an internal memo, not to bother doing it in an attempt to fix the piston noise.
Ian
Yes, piston slap does go away when the engine warms up and the pistons expand. I'm not too worried about it though. It's got 54,000 miles on it with no problems so far, and all the people I've ever talked to with these 2.2L engines always have the same answers. They are all good for the same 2 things: blowing head gaskets and ticking like crazy when started cold.
It's odd that one poster said they never see many 4 cylinder S-trucks. In all the time I've lived around here, I've seen MAYBE 3 or 4 of them that were V6 powered. The rest are all 4-cyl. I'm talking about the newer generation S-10 trucks (1994-present) there are tons of older models with the 4.3L running around. I had looked at 3 other
2.2L S trucks before I ended up buying the Sonoma I have now. On the lot next to mine were 4 other S-10's and only 1 of them had a V6... it was also an ex-cab 4x4. I have 2 friends with S-10's and both of theirs are 2.2L powered as well. Quite common around here it seems. Keep in mind, these are all 2WD single cabs. I've never seen a 4x4 S-10 with a 4-cyl, which is a good thing I'm sure...Oh well, this thing can blow up for all I care. Cheapest piece of garbage I've owned since my '93 F-150. I dunno which one was worse. At least my '72 and '87 both run good ;-)
-- Tony Kimmell Townada, IL
To email me, put a "2" after my last name in my email address
"Tony Kimmell" wrote
I believe that I prefaced my remark.... something to the effect that I could only speak to what was happening in "my neck of the woods". I live in Alberta, Canada....and here, 4 cylinder s-trucks are not nearly as common as the v-6 versions. Probably something to do with the high percentage of "rednecks" here?
Ian
Haha... I guess that could be it. I guess I never thought of it that way. Now that you mention it, I did see alot of hosers last time I was up dere dat way, eh? :-)
"Tony Kimmell" wrote
I've got my toque on and drinking Molson as we speak/type....(grin)
Ian
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