Racing my mate on his bike tonight and giving her a beating.. I noticed under hard load in 3rd I think I was, I heard a rattle from engine.. 

 

So I backed off straight away, for the next 3 miles I drove easy and no untoward sounds.. then I gave her some light abuse half potential, and again no noise!! 

I haven't heard it since.. 

 

Oil light came on after a long journey day before yesterday (yellow) so I bought a ltr, and waited till morning and topped up to norm.

 

Not so long ago I dropped sump and cleaned pick up and gause.. 

 

Could I be looking at a weak oil pump here? It is absolutely fine normal to spirited driving but when I thrashed it, it did rattle

Hard to say if the oil pumps weak bud. Best bet it to keep checking the oil level and see if the oil is getting super thin when it's hot.

If it is might be worth going to a thicker grade.

I know standard oil is thin but as these cars are getting older might benefit from 10w40 grade.

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If your A/C pump is on the way out it sounds awful,rattles like the engine is falling apart!

If your A/C pump is on the way out it sounds awful,rattles like the engine is falling apart!

 

yep i know that one, I first thought gearbox was rattling.

 

This is the next thing to do on my car.

my gearbox well clives is being built now cant wait to fit it and welly cooler came today 

Interesting one that.. ac pump I didn't give that any thought. Could well be then. It doesn't do it when driving nicely, in fact I've only hear this rattle twice!

 

I will be removing the air con anyway and fitting a smaller aux belt of course..

 

On the oil, I filled with 5w 30 full sympathetic lol.. But I may well go to a 10 40 but will obv stay with fully synth 

If your car rattles try turning the A/C on,if it quietens down a bit then it's the A/C pump! ;-)

Mine sounds sh1te but goes quiet when the pump is on! Lol

A 40 weight oil is among those recommended,I'd stick to a 5w though, gets round the engine that little bit quicker from cold. My boys just bought a 'Y' reg VRS and we've got it on Shell Helix Ultra 5w40 fully synthetic. You say you did the sump not long ago,any chance you overdid the sealant and it's squeezed out into the sump,broken away and started clogging the pipe?

No mate. I used it sparingly with this in mind. If anything, it would have spiled on the outside thus is the way I applied it. And I removed the gause from my pickup as mine was well and truly clogged

When you do pickup it is always good to remove pump chain and spin pump to see if bearing is seizing up

Had 4 dead engines in last month due to oil pump bearing failure

The only reason I didn't remove it was because I didn't see oil pressure light once, and when I saw the gauze completely blocked I thought that was the route cause 

 

Find myself agreeing with you mind. In hindsight should've checked