Lifter noise?

[Bruce]

Lately when my car has sat for a long period it will tick on start up then goes away after a short time. Seems to be taking longer to quiet down each time I start it but it only does it when it sits for a long time. The stock oil pressure gauge says my pressure is where it always is and it comes up right away but the sound stays past that point? Lifter or what do you think?

[DAVEZ84SVO]

I wonder if it has anything to do with the weight of oil that you are using?? Just a thought..

Dave

[Bruce]

Been running the same oil for 149,000 miles! Never did this before! By the way do the lifters just lift out easily or is there a trick to it?

[DAVEZ84SVO]

Mine just lifted out.. I used a pliers to get some better grip cause of the oil coatings..

Why you removing them?? Just cause of the ticking??

Dave

[tateg]

Been running the same oil for 149,000 miles! Never did this before! By the way do the lifters just lift out easily or is there a trick to it?

Well maybe it's time for an oil change. You might replace the filter while you're in there too.

No trick to the lifters. Just make sure when you remove the slider that you don't accidentally remove the retainers on the valve springs. That's not fun.

[DantePasqual]

Hi Guys,
I'm having the same issue (I think) but it's getting really noisy. I'm at 148000 miles, too but had the engine freshened at 80000 and put new lifters, springs, cam at that time. If I remember correctly we put lifters in from a 5.0 and were "anti" pump up or something like that (too long ago for my aged memory!!)

Is there an easy way to see if it's the lifters or something else gone wrong???

Thanks,
Dante

[SVOeric]

anti-pumps are typically louder...
2 ways to prove it's lifter noise, ..
-- 1 eliminate everything else
-- 2 change the lifters.
and just FYI, these are not 'lifters' they are HLA's (hydraulic lash adjusters) -- not that there is any difference...

[NavySVO]

You could take the cam cover off and conduct a visual on the cam, followers, etc. That may actually shed some light on the issue

[DantePasqual]

One thing I forgot to mention is that the noise goes away when I lift off the accelerator. I was thinking that a bad HLA would make noise under load and when you back off, too! Is this the case?

[NavySVO]

What about at idle with the hood open? Does it do it when you rev it curbside with hood open?

[DantePasqual]

At idle with the hood open the clicking is noticeable, but not too loud. If you rev it slowly, say to 2500 rpm it doesn't get any louder, but under load or revving quickly it does. When under load the clicking is noticeable through the entire rpm band (I only went to 4000 rpm since I don't know what's wrong).

Idle speed is right around 1000 rpm, don't really want to go higher
To be honest, I can't remember if/when the PCV valve was replaced. I remember doing it back in, oh, 1989! It could probably do with replacing, eh? Do they still make the original part or is there a new part number?

[SVOeric]

you can hear injector clicking in there too.. especially at idle.

yes, you can still get the motorcraft pcv, and you should.. the aftermarkets don't hold boost as well.

[DantePasqual]

Well, I pulled the valve cover off, replaced the PCV valve while I was at it. Put it back together and fired it up. Still had the noise, it's definitely not on the "cool" side where the fuel injectors are. It's much more noticeable on the exhaust side and is at the rear of the engine, up high.

When I had the valve cover off I poked around and I really didn't like what I saw. There were visible wear marks on the trailing side of every lobe in the cam.

My memory of the rebuild is starting to come back, and now I remember that they didn't change the cam, to save me some money! So, this has about 150K miles on it.

Another thing I noticed was that the oil on top, had a kind of "burnt" smell to it. Not sure what that's all about, but maybe it's just funky because it hasn't been off in 13 years

I'm pretty sure the noise is "just" the HLA, but I'm thinking that the thing to do is to replace the head and go with the roller cam. What are your thoughts on this?

Here's some pictures of the cam that I wanted to add:

http://www.cocoanet.us/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=2823