BBQ tick - another attempt to understand

[TheLion]

Based on the video I didn't really see anything that looked suspicious and it sounds to me like your friends car had play in other areas that are not necessarily associated with the BBQ tick. But I think we can all have a high confidence level at this point that the "BBQ Tick" is due to side to side clearance thanks to yours and GT Pony's efforts. There are only so many places to look inside an engine for such noises to occur.

It's not a design issue, it's a manufacturing issue with whoever supplies Ford with cranks or rods depending on which is the primary culprit. Regardless, I don't at this point believe it to be harmful. @scotty is a great example thus far of it having no effect on the cars function or reliability.

If you recall my list, he had the issue start at around 5k, then super charged the car around 12k miles and is now past 25k miles without any change in the ticking. It's exactly the same as it was when it started and he's now pushing 670 hp and 9 PSI of boost...there are numerous examples of S197's with the same issue that run absolutely fine that now have anywhere from 50k to 75k miles on them.

There are other issues that are more serious that can have a similar sound, however those cars, as few as they are, tend to deteriorate in performance very rapidly. You can't go far on spun rod bearings and your going to eat oil is out of round cylinders. IMRC valves cause drive ability issues typically such as hesitation / surging / stalling etc.

I'll report back in a month on the Cera Tec additive after I get around to putting it in and using it for at least a thousand miles. My main reason at this point is improved boundary layer protection and to see if I can keep my oil temps down a bit more when I push the car hard as I've seen multiple reports of that.

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[scotty]

Well I had my oil changed at the dealer today, and as expected the tick came back. No louder than usual and again at 1500-2000rpm under light throttle. I drove home to let the oil warm up fully then dumped only half of the bottle of Ceratec in (the oil level was within the hash marks... so didn't want to over fill) then went for a drive. The ticking is gone, I can't even reproduce it in typical instances - went thru a drive thru and didn't hear any ticking at all, even when I tried to force it to do so in the rpm range that it's most susceptible.... zilch, nadda, no tick whatsoever. When I got home I parked against a wall at my building, gave some light revs, nothing!

I am so happy. Now I can finally go back to enjoying the car!
I will keep you guys updated every so often.

 

[TheLion]

Just some food for thought:

 

[GT Pony]

okay like i said, I took a trip over today and did a small video of what I saw. You will see a bit of blueing on the ends of the journals nearest the fly, This is the only one that have had the rod ends taken off as this was the worst one for side to side.
The inspector who is coming to see this thinks there is end play in the crank its self, so as you push the clutch in the crank moves back and forth.

If that is the only place on the crankshaft near rod journals that shows a blueing colorization, then it might indicate there was some extra heat there. But in order to turn steel blue like that, it would have to be a lot of heat, which doesn't seem possible from just sloppy rod side clearance - but maybe it did happen since that area where it's blue is pretty thin so heat going into that area could possibly get that little ear on the crankshaft pretty not with high RPM use.

If the crankshaft end play is also excessive, then that along with excessive rod side clearances could make all kind of interesting sounds when running.

From the service manual: Crankshaft maximum end play = 0.0110 in (.28 mm)

Ford really needs to tighten up their quality control on the bottom end of the Coyote. If all these ticking Coyote engines are primarily caused by out of spec rod end side clearance and/or out of spec crankshaft end play then they are really failing at what should be an easy task to achieve.

And what's even more ridiculous is that Ford's QA process let motors leave the factory with these specs already beyond the max service limit. It's really not hard to measure rod side clearance and crankshaft end play.

 

[GT Pony]

Well I had my oil changed at the dealer today, and as expected the tick came back. No louder than usual and again at 1500-2000rpm under light throttle. I drove home to let the oil warm up fully then dumped only half of the bottle of Ceratec in (the oil level was within the hash marks... so didn't want to over fill) then went for a drive. The ticking is gone, I can't even reproduce it in typical instances - went thru a drive thru and didn't hear any ticking at all, even when I tried to force it to do so in the rpm range that it's most susceptible.... zilch, nadda, no tick whatsoever. When I got home I parked against a wall at my building, gave some light revs, nothing!

I am so happy. Now I can finally go back to enjoying the car!
I will keep you guys updated every so often.

I think ever guy who's tried the Cera Tec has reported the ticking is gone after adding it to the oil. And you only used 1/2 the bottle which is amazing.

 

[spogshd]

I will keep you posted as to the outcome of the report, the inspector will be out next week to look at this as it is, then i think it will be pulled out to have a good look at it disassembled.
Totally agree the bearings don't look to bad, so where the heat came from on the journal ends baffles me a little unless the rod end did it.
It will be an independent inspection report, the guy is well respected in the industry.
Thanks for all your input on these photos and vids, lets hope some others can chime in with there own vids,photos, tolerances and experiences.

 

[spogshd]

I think ever guy who's tried the Cera Tec has reported the ticking is gone after adding it to the oil. And you only used 1/2 the bottle which is amazing.

I just bought a bottle, can't do any harm, CAN IT.

 

[GT Pony]

I just bought a bottle, can't do any harm, CAN IT.

No reports of any harm from using the Cera Tec additive. Let us know if you can hear a difference after using it. You might want to start with 1/2 the bottle and go from there.

 

[spogshd]

No reports of any harm from using the Cera Tec additive. Let us know if you can hear a difference after using it. You might want to start with 1/2 the bottle and go from there.

This is going in my car, before anything happens. lol

 

[Toro73]

+1 for the sticky. And im also getting a bottle of Cera Tec additive. I might do another oil change even though I did one a couple of weeks ago

 

[codegrinder]

So do you add this every oil change? Getting a new short block would love to not deal with this failure again.

 

[GT Pony]

So do you add this every oil change? Getting a new short block would love to not deal with this failure again.

According to the literature on the Cera Tec, it's supposed to last for up to 30K miles. So apparently don't need to add any every oil change. Just add again if the tick starts to return on a new oil change.

 

[spogshd]

I was just thinking, could you put the Cera Tec in the gearbox only the rst mcleod creates a lot of gear rollover around 1800-2000 rpm in low gears, any thoughts.
I will start a new thread but as we were talking about it just thought i'd mention it.

 

[scotty]

I was just thinking, could you put the Cera Tec in the gearbox only the rst mcleod creates a lot of gear rollover around 1800-2000 rpm in low gears, any thoughts.
I will start a new thread but as we were talking about it just thought i'd mention it.

That should be fine - only warning on the bottle was "Do not use with wet clutches".
https://products.liqui-moly.com/cera-tec-1.html

 

[SlaughterOfTheSoul]

Excessive crankshaft clearance would cause the tick with the rods, and potentially cause cylinder damage parallel to the crank. This is exactly the failure mode we're seeing. I'd be curious to see how many cars have excessive thrust bearing clearance.

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