Top End: Is this foolish?

[YW84U]

In the next few days, I plan to pop the valve cover on the passenger side and look at the rockers/rods to see if I can emliminate the dreaded racket. My question is, if I only replace rockers/rods on one side, will the engine turn into a 'shaker' or be victim of early demise?

The driver side seems fine, and I am subscribing to the addage of "if it ain't broke..."

The clatter is only from the one side, and I figure I can cheap out (270,00 km anyways) by maybe just doing this and the intake manifold gasket to get this thing past 300,000 without it sounding like such a heap.

I've read Raceit's write-up along with other related lifter posts, but am lead to beleieve that most have always done both sides at the same time. Any thoughts?

 

[Rick]

It won't cause anything to fail earlier than it otherwise would have. Your noise is most likely a worn out pushrod cup in the rocker arm and/or a stuck lifter.

If it's the lifter then you will be doing the whole top end to get to them.

 

[Alec]

You should always work on both sides of an engine. Don't know if it's absolutely necessary for engine life, but it's a good conservative policy.

There's a good chance that the noise is your lifters though. If you're already doing some top end work I'd go ahead and pull the top off and replace the lifters too.

 

[YW84U]

I'm just hopeful that it's the cups and tips that are the culprits. It's only the one side, towards the rear cylinder, and worst on first start-up until reaching operating temp, then almost disappears.

Can a bum lifter be spotted while still in the head? Any tips on what to look for when the cover comes off? I do plan to remove the rocker assy's and check the tips, and at least put new rods in the one side. I'm hoping that replacing these will take up enough slack/tolerance so that a so-so lifter might still be able to compensate enough.

With so many miles on it, I would rather save a full $$$ rebuild for a long block and pop it in, then I can take my time with it on the bench. I suppose I'm looking for an interim measure just to keep it quiet until that day!!

Thanks in Advance,

 

[Raceit]

Your engine obviously won't blow up if you just do one side, but you might end up doing the other side just a short time later. So personally I'd do both just for that reason.

Here's what you can look for. If you look at the rocker arm that's above the spring with the red paint on it, you will notice the arm isn't touching the top of the valve. (Hence the valve clatter) In this picture I was able to move that rocker by hand back and forth. What you may have to do is crank your engine over by hand to have the engine go through it's complete cycle. Then you'll be able to find the loose rocker arms as the engine turns. (Obviously disconnect the battery and follow all saftey procedures when turning the engine by hand!)

Good luck! It's a pretty big job. But if you do it yourself you can save a bundle.

 

[Doug904]

Your noise is more then likly your rockers and pushrods. They are very very bad about wearing out badly. You could try www.4.0performance.com and get their refresh kits. They work great to stop that noise.

Later Doug904.