I've been reading and searching for all my mini issues and mods so far and finding tons of amazing info.

This one has me stumped so I'm looking for a second opinion...

2003 MCS 116,000km M7-16% K/N air. 0W-40 Euro grade synthetic. Avg temp (Canada) 15C

So I have this loud clack thats in time with the valve train. Pulled my front clip, super charger and valve cover to investigrate... (Yes, Investigrate...)

Video:
Serpentine belt (tensioner) is fine. No rattle or oscillation.

Harmonic balancer is fine. Stethoscope has no noise in that area.

Super charger oil was full and clean. Gears looked perfect.

Checked water pump, seems good.

Pulled timing chain tensioner, moves freely with no grit or grind. Reset and reinstalled.

That left me with valve train... Peaked into my cam shaft and noticed extreme wear on all four exhaust cam lobes with a bit on the intake lobes. Pulled the cam and found 0.5mm of wear! (See photo)

Found a new cam locally with less than 500km on it. Checked specs on rockers and inspected all lifters, rollers and cam bearing surfaces. Everything checked out great so I installed the new cam hoping that would be the end.

Fired it up and had the same noise (if not a bit louder...) Figured it needed to warm up fully...

350km later and its still just as loud!

So my options now seem to be new rocker assembly mainly just to replace the lifters. I would like to avoid this if any one has an opinion on what else it could be?

Blocked oil passage to cam area causing low oil pressure in lifters?

Thanks for any help!

 

Hey,

Many people have had the same problem. At least to me it sounds really similar to it. What I did to fix it once and for all, was to change all the timing chain components. The timing chain guides tend to wear after a while and it creates a chatter noise in the timing chain area. The timing chain tensioner is the main culprit, but if you put in a new one it wont fix the problem once and for all because of the wear on the timing chain components.

I hope this helps. You can try the ModMini youtube channel. Goodstuff!

 

Throw a new timing chain tensioner at it. They're relatively cheap and easy to replace. You might find that your timing chain guides have delaminated (or partially delaminated), which requires taking off the valve cover and replacing them. If they have broken, you should also drop the oil pan and retrieve the bits that are sitting down there so they don't foul your oil pickup.


...or you could take it to a qualified MINI repair facility.

 

Granted it wouldnt explain your camshaft being worn out, but from the video it sounds like an exhaust leak to me.

 

That's no exhaust leak... Get a new tensioner in there.

 

Are you sure the pivot shaft for the exhaust rockers is installed correctly? It can be installed 180-degrees out of correct orientation which restricts oil flow to the four exhaust rockers. Makes them noisy and might explain the extra wear on the cam. There is an oil hole on the center cam tower that has to allign with an oil hole on the shaft.

The guys at Helix figured it out when mine was clanking. Not the only valve noise issue I've had, but it had an easy solution...