So...the 110 passed its MOT...but the tappet noise turned out to be not a tappet! So far I have:
- inspected cam shaft followers, replaced 1 - fixed a sticky inlet valve - replaced a snapped rocker shaft - replaced cam belt and reset cam timing
Still sounds like it's got a noisy tappet. No smoking or performance problems. Spoken to a couple of 'experts' who can't offer any other ideas.
Have had a suggestion that head could have been over-skimmed causing valves to hit pistons when running (there's nothing fowling when turning engine via spanner on crankshaft). This sort of ties up with the fact that I can see (inlet only) valve marks on the piston heads, which I had previously assumed were from a snapped cambelt at some point in time. Also, badly warped head can cause the rocker shaft to snap, apparently. But....if the cause of this is down to the head being over-skimmed, why would the inlet valves be hitting the pistons but not the exhaust valves?
Anybody got any ideas / comments etc.? I'd be grateful for any helpful advice - it's starting to grind me down now.
Icky.