Piston slap usually does not suddenly appear. Since the engine was
"short cycled", (run a few times without fully warming up), my bet is
that you have an air bound lifter. This is a fairly common VW ailment.
There is probably a lifter with a bad ball check or one simply bleeds
down. The fix for this is to allow the engine to warm up and then drive
it gently. Sometimes, a lifter may get stubborn where the engine has to
go above 4k rpm to get it to pump up. After it pumps up, avoid the short
start up cycles.

For normal highway driving, the 10w-30 is too thin for this engine. For
winter operation, I suggest a 10w-40 or a synthetic 0w-40. For the other
3 seasons, run 20w-50 or Synthetic 15w-50.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf
Of Joe Lin
Sent: Monday, December 06, 2004 7:46 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: engine noise.......piston slap?

-87 wolf w/ 81k miles
-small coolant leak, about a quarter sized drop of coolant every
couple of days
-head gasket replaced at about 70k

I went to go check the engine oil, added a quart of 10/30w oil then
parked it in the garage. A week went by before I pulled it out and
then my waterbox started making noise. pistion slap, I think. It
wasnt a knocking noise. I didnt let it warm up completely because i
had to pull the steering rack to get a replacement and was running
short on sunlight. it does not go away when i rev the engine, it
just doesnt sound as loud and I didnt let it warm up. The temp in
NYC also dropped into the 30's.

-What is the potential cause of the sound?
-What are my potential problems if the sound doesnt go away?
-Will I grenade my motor?

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