Uh oh.. Tapping noise being heard

[silverhemi07]

Hello,

Had my car at a local shop to have a tapping noise from the engine checked out. Mechanic pulled the valve covers off and said all the valve springs look good, no cracks or breaks. Without going in deeper he suspects a bad lifter. It appears the tap is coming from the drivers side, cylinder closet to the fire wall. He does not recommend fixing since the tap is light and would recommend just driving it until the engine is dead and then replace with a crate engine. He says the engine is very well maintain for 159k, one on the cleanest engines he has seen with that much mileage. I've changed the oil religiously using synthetic only, my only concern is the road trip to Jersey i am going to make next week from Florida. He said I should be fine but I am not sure. I heard a valve job could run 1k - 2k but the mechanic said you could do that but something else could break on the bottem end with the mileage I have. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated from the folks here.

thanks.

[typicalmarine]

Maybe I'm mistaken but if it's possibly just a bad lifter, why not just swap them all out? It's been a while since I've purchased lifters but I seem to remember being able to buy a completely new set of 6.1 lifters for under $200. The labor charge should be minimal.

Leaving it "as is" until something gives out seems to be opening the door and inviting in larger issues.

[formerice]

I put in a sidewinder cam at 140,000 miles. Since then it's tapped like my dad's old 1940 Chevy 216 farm truck with solid lifters. It's still tapping at 245,000 miles. My Ram has a sidewinder cam and tics way less and it has almost 170,000 very hard miles. I'm just saying, it might not be anything to lose sleep over. My car ticks like hell, but it runs awesome.

[aim4squirrels]

At about 160K a slightly thicker oil might quiet that lifter down.

[karfreek]

I drove a car that had lifter noise for 75000mi. When the body crapped out the motor was pulled and installed in an 81 firebird. Something's just are.


Jay

Via Tapatalk

[silverhemi07]

I certainly agree with this. I am trying to find out what the cost would be however I've been hearing at least 1000.00 to do the work.

Maybe I'm mistaken but if it's possibly just a bad lifter, why not just swap them all out? It's been a while since I've purchased lifters but I seem to remember being able to buy a completely new set of 6.1 lifters for under $200. The labor charge should be minimal.

Leaving it "as is" until something gives out seems to be opening the door and inviting in larger issues.

[silverhemi07]

What concerning is I've never had this tick. It started roughly 3 months ago and the tapping sounds like someone is taking a hammer and lightly hitting metal. I wish I could take an audio sample so you could compare to what you hear with your vehicle.

I put in a sidewinder cam at 140,000 miles. Since then it's tapped like my dad's old 1940 Chevy 216 farm truck with solid lifters. It's still tapping at 245,000 miles. My Ram has a sidewinder cam and tics way less and it has almost 170,000 very hard miles. I'm just saying, it might not be anything to lose sleep over. My car ticks like hell, but it runs awesome.

[silverhemi07]

I thought with MDS in the 5.7 , we needed to use 5-20 weight oil. I used to do this with my "76" Comet back in the day.

At about 160K a slightly thicker oil might quiet that lifter down.

[silverhemi07]

I hear you. I would like to just get the friggin car paid off at the end of the year and not have to get into anymore payments. You could could not tell the car is over 5 years old. I maintain it very well and it is always in the garage.

I drove a car that had lifter noise for 75000mi. When the body crapped out the motor was pulled and installed in an 81 firebird. Something's just are.


Jay

Via Tapatalk

[silverhemi07]

If it would help I'd like to get a sound clip added so folks can hear what I am talking about. If someone can provide instructions on how to do this , i'll do it. Thanks again everybody for the feedback.

[aim4squirrels]

I thought with MDS in the 5.7 , we needed to use 5-20 weight oil. I used to do this with my "76" Comet back in the day.

Dammit man, you're right, i forget about that MDS stuff all the time as it's not on my '08 6.1L.

I'll also bet they've re-engineered these engines so you have to pull the heads to replace the lifters.

On the old 5.2L i had, the engine would often get sludgy and coked up on the places in the lifter gallery where there was no oil return hole. That sometimes got the funk into the lifters written it built up really badly. half a can of seafoam in the oil pan about 500 miles before an oil change would usually be enough to clean out the lifters, but i don't know if that's safe for the MDS lifters or not. Definitely would be scared to try it on the VCT cam phaser.