Just bought an 04 3/4 ton 4x4 with the LLY engine. I have a knocking or rattling sound coming from the engine. You can here it best from the drivers side front fender well. I cannot trace where it's coming from. Took it to the dealer and they said it was normal and that some trucks do it and some don't. They can't tell me what the noise is however even after calling GM. In my book a knock or rattle from an engine is not normal (even from a diesel). Anybody else experiencing the same thing?? Any ideas on what it is. Thanks in advance.

Search for "tick" noise, or "typewriter". If the descriptions match, it's the infamous Duramax tick tick sound and is normal and harmless.

I have got this same noise. Not the random ticking noise you can hear at idle when my engine was newer, but more of a loud valve rattle. It has subsided for now and is bearly audbile. I had taken a road trip to Madisonville unloaded and the sound was terrible and loud. Said i was going to take it in, on the way back 2 days later, same tank of gas, i did not hear it at all.

I only here my noise @ Idle. Have not noticed it at any other times. Everything I found on my search stated the noise is between 2000-2500 rpm. Is this the same noise??

The random Ticking TSB is at low RPMs Idle to 1500 i think or at least mine was. I think most of this seems to go away over a period of time.


Read in the TSB section for the ticking noise issue.


My Valve rattle is across all RPMS and is worse when accelerating.

My truck had a ticking noise that also became a squeek. After they replaced the belt and idler arm pulleys (I think the tick is the bearings going bad) both noises went away. It has been about a month so far and it hasn't returned yet. yesterday I spoke with the dealer and they said GM has sent them a new power steering bracket for my truck. They felt that the problem is that the power steering was not correctly aligned and caused the pulleys and belt to go bad. they expect the problem to reoccur if not corrected. Perhaps this is the ticking you are hearing. By the way, mine was also most noticable from the driver side front fender.

I have the same noise comming from my engine. Notice it on the drivers side real bad. I am taking it in on Tuesday to have it checked out. http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Disapprove.gif

Let me know what you find out please.

Just picked up my truck from the dealer yesterday they had it 2 days checking out the engine tick. They gave me a service bulletin showing me it is normal and should go away after about 10,000 miles. The service manager told me that GM told him that the better fit engines would tick louder than most like mine does. They guarantee me that it has no ill effects on the engine. I guess I will have to get use to it for now.http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Question.gifEdited by: dandy

Strangely enough mine started this ticking noise after my first oil change at 740 miles. I wanted to dump the factory oil and run Shell Rotella T. The factory stuff was BLACK. The Shell oil seems to have quieted the motor a bit for whatever reason.

After about an hour of driving, I could hear the ticking noise when I was stopped. Strange. No problems with acceleration or anything else. Runs like a champ.

I seem to have something similar happening, but it's worse when Cruise control is on. Does anyone know of a connection?


No warning lights, even though it's knocking, black smoke, white smoke (when the knocking/clacking gets bad), low power -especially above 60 mph. But, only when the cruise is on.


When I turn off the cruise, and "pedal" it, I can go up to 75 mph with some smoke, but nothing like with cruise. I slowed down to 65, put cruise on the smoke, clacking, power loss occur almost immediately. I turn it off, and after about 30 seconds, back to smoking mildly, but no other ill effects.


Oh, I have 2601 miles on the truck.


Any ideas anyone?


Thanks.Edited by: Gruffid

All that noise I had is gone now that I disconnected my EGR. Not sure about the other issues but I would sure give it a try.

Want to hear something even stranger? If I accelerate hard from a stop, but just roll the throttle, not just mashing the pedal, the motor will sound like a gasser that's pinging and then the motor actually gets a little quieter and smoother sounding. No rattle whatsoever at heavy throttle.

I have just bought my first diesel, 2004.5 lly, after about 3000 miles I started to hear pinging. It seems to be worst at maintaining speed and goes away when power is added. Also it really is terrible when warming up, which seems to take about 8 miles with temperature of 70 degrees. This pinging is driving me nuts, and all mechanics are on strike in St. Louis, and am afraid of damaging engine. Any help????

Reliver and Gruffid, it sounds to me like you are possible having injector problems. Sometimes the nozzles are sticking. The "fix" right now is to use a high quality fuel additive. I have seen a few with symptoms similar to what you describe. If the Tech is having a hard time diagnosing, have him road test with you while its happening and disable injectors one at a time to see which one it is. A good fuel additive should take care of it though. Standadyne is what we're using and its cured a couple.

I had the same thing happen to mine. I added some Power service fuel additive to my fuel and the problem went away after about 100 miles.

Thanks for the replies from socaldieseltech, and dandy,
I have already tried power service fuel additive, and it takes care of the problem, but when I try to go back to the station diesel it pings terribly. I have the edge additude and juice, and boy that really makes the problem very bad. I seen on the forum that guys were disabling the egr valve, and I tried that just to see if the second hand fuel was causing it, but no so I rehooked it up. I guess I will have to drive it this way, and hope it doesn't hurt the engine until our dealers mechanics go back off strike.

socaldieseltech- When the tech diagnosed my injectors they did it with the techII. At first they were checking the truck in park and it met GM specs. I told them that the problem only existed when in gear (under load) so they rechecked them in gear with the brake applied. My #2 shot up to over+15. As I said it was fine in gear but under load it was way over. The funny thing is that it wasn't giving off any codes even though GM said that it would if they were over +13

This is my first diesel, and probably my last, but does this cause damage to the engine???? since I can't do any thing right now with the mechanics on strike. My last truck was a 2002 HD and I installed a Whipple supercharger, and that was a blast,but this time a friend told me to buy a diesel, I hope I'm not going to be having alot of trouble with this truck, at least I understood gas engines. Also my friend has a Ford, and I have always given him crap about Ford, now I'm the one eating the stuff.....bummer

maynard9089, when you say "under load" do you mean power brake? Because balance rates go away off idle, so you can't check them. I've seen balance rates at 15 at idle with the fuel pressure at 160mpa. The only way I've been able to diagnose these "sticky injectors" is to disable the injector while the problem is occuring. Even then, sometimes a new injector won't fix it. The fuel additive is what will "fix" it, at this point.

SoCal-No power brake. Still at idle but in gear.The other seven cylindars stayed low and close to each other but my number 2 rocketed. No pressure was applied to the accelerator.

I think their is a lot of poor quality fuel out their. When I had the problem the dealer checked my fuel and it wasn't even close to what GM recommends for a rating. Now I have been fueling at well known truck stops and the problem has gone away. I think the stations that the big trucks frequent have better fuel because If they get bad fuel they probably wont be back.

You know, after thinking about this I was sitting at a stop light and was parked next to a big rig. It was a Peterbuilt cement truck. It was ticking just like my truck, but much more pronounced. Maybe they were talking to one another, being brothers :)
I remember hearing that exact sound on other big diesel trucks over my 34 years and I always thought it was an on-board air supply unit, a compressor of some sort, filling itself, but now I think its just this:

http://dieselplace.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=155&PN=1

My truck and the truck I heard today exhibited these sounds. It sound like a great many of you are experiencing the same. Yes? No?
Edited by: hamsalad

OK Guys and Gals, it seems that the smoking, clanking, power loss with the Cruise control is directly related to oil enhanced air filters. My problem was that my K&N filter was leaving deposits on the Mass Air Flow Sensor. The computer was unable to read the air coming into the system because the sensor had oil caked on.


So, there's this service bulletin which says that if this happens, and the customer brings the vehicle in for service, the technicians are not to repair under warranty if concerns results from the use of a reusable aftermarket oiled air filter.


I didn't get that info before I bought and installed the filter. We may want to spread the word...

[QUOTE=reliver]This is my first diesel, and probably my last, but does this cause damage to the engine????


Don't give up on your D/A too quickly! http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Approve.gifThe guys on this site have a wealth of technical knowledge and experience you can utilize. As evidenced by the posts the ticking noise is nothing new and evidently doesn't harm the engine. Bad fuel is a big culprit, especially if you are fueling at gas stations that don't pump lots of diesel. Try fueling at truck stops for a couple of tanks, and get your hands on stanadyne. Consider disconnecting the EGR as others have done since it eliminates soot from being recirculated thru the intake.


I too was a bit overwhelmed when I first purchased my truck. 8 weeks later and many hours spent reading posts on this site have convinced me that the D/A is a fine machine. The power is addicting. Ford, Dodge and GM all have their issues, diesel or gas! For every problem you read on this site there are thousands of D/A's out there running fine. JJ http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Big Smile.gif

I also had that noise but it went away. I also feel that everyone is changing their oil way to early no reason to change 10 qts of oil with only 750 miles on it. You NEED that factory oil for Breakin. Well thats how I feel about that. I didn't change my oil until I had 3000 miles on it, I also used Shell Rotella T. I will not change for another 3000 miles. After 10,000 miles I will use synthetic. But I will not use synthetic oil until the engine is fully broken in. I think the most important filter to change is the fuel filter. I also change the fuel filter when I change the oil.

http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/HiHi.gif Like I said you are going to find a wide range of opinions on something as simple as changing the oil. Since you likely just spent $40k+- on your truck it is best to gather your own intel and make your own decision. It should logic that changing oil more often definitely keeps fresher oil in the engine, but then the cost factor comes in. Personally I'm not going to let $50-$60 bucks a year difference affect my choice.


There are a few guys on this site that are lubrication specialist and know oils like the back of their hands. http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Geek.gif Who'd thunk oil cud be so dang interesting? I enjoy reading their posts.


I researched this site and another (not mentioned) regarding oils, filters and change intervals. This is my first diesel engine so I'm in the learning stage. From what I understand http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Confused.gif diesel engines affect oil differently than gassers do. You'll see references to engine oil analysis. It appears diesel engine oil can become corrosive (?) even while having plenty of lubricating properties left in the oil. I don't totally understand the "cetane" ratings, etc. Landguy, this is your territory! http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Confused.gif Help?


I can tell you there was a noticeable difference in my engines performance when I changed oil the first time. I plan to convert to Mobil Delvac 1 at 10k miles, then I'll have synthetics in all major components. JJ http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Big Smile.gif

Now besides my rattle my truck makes a chirping noise when I shut it off. Had it at the dealer yesterday and again was told this was normal. The service writer told me because of the high compression of the engine the belt will slip a little when I shut down causing this chirp. Not feeling warm & fuzzy about this writer's answers as he had an excuse for everything I asked him. Any ideas?? Also fuel milage still sucks. Best I've gotten is 14.5 mpg not pulling mainly highway driving. Wondering if I shouldn't have bought another Ford!

Big Rack , assuming you have a LLY , mine also makes the noise when shutting off. I now have 11,500 miles and it is running better and mileage started out like yours and is climbing well over 18 already. Chin up !!!http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Approve.gif

Mine chirps a bit, too when I shut down. No problems here. It definitely sounds like compression-related issue. i don't think there is anything to worry about.

I'm not so sure about the compression affecting the belt issue. When I shut of the truck, it doesn't sound any different as far as time to stop spinning than any other engine I've ever heard. I think that is a crock IMHO.


Dennis

I had the same problem with my truck, loud knocking noise on driver side. Had to think back to what might have changed. It ended up being a aftermarket locking fuel cap, replaced it back to stock and all was fine.