4.8 ls ticking noise help

[Sweetc10]

Hoping some of you guys can lead me in the right direction without tossing money. I have a 68 c10 that I just installed what I think is a 2005 4.8 , did the msd and carb set up. Had the oil pan pulled and checked by a shop rebuilt the heads and put a small cam in. My issue I'm having is once the motor warms up I get a ticking noise that revs with the rpms. I pulled the valve cover wiggled the rockers the ones with valves up all have little wiggle , the ones started pushing valves down no movement. Also started truck with valve cover off they all moving like supposed to. Could hear the tapping but couldn't really pin point which one was doing the tapping. Sorry for long post just trying to put as much info as I could. Thanks for any help

[68c10airstream]

A friend had a similar tick in his 5.3 2001 suburban. As a past dealer mechanic i used a wooden stick to my ear to figure which valve cover to remove. It would only tick warm, so once warmed up, off came the valve cover and with a feeler gauge of say .020" go from one valve tip and to the next with it running and when you get the feeler gauge to go in between the valve and rocker tip and quiet the tick down, that's the lifter or valve with issue. In the case of my friend's 5.3 i installed 1 lifter and all was good. If your motor is varnished up a lot a trick i learned from the 70's with sticking piston rings from varnish in chevy chevettes is to add a quart of naptha on top of a full crankcase and run it for a day or two at slower speeds and drain it out. You can do it as many times as you wish.

One word of caution is keep an ear to the engine when you drive it with the "naptha" in the engine, as in a severe case of varnish letting loose it may plug up an oil filter.I'm not saying your engine is real dirty inside, just some info for anyone reading this.

I have at least 4 "naptha" stories, 3 of which i was involved in with great success!

[uxdesigner]

Seafoam = pale oil, naphtha, and isopropyl alcohol blend

[homemade87]

I see you put a cam in . If you did not take the time to check preload on the lifters with the correct push rods length its very possible you will get some noise . Not sure how bad yours is but most ls motor will have a little lifter noise with a cam swap . Mostly with the bigger lift . Dont know how small your lift is and may not be that significant on your engine .

Also most aftermarket cams have a different base circle and will require different push rods . I would check with your cam supplier and see what is required .



This may be one other clue ( when the engine warms up ) . Could be an exhaust manifold leak . Some will not leak until warmed up . Sounds like a lifter tick .

Just a couple thinks to think about .

[Sweetc10]

Originally Posted by homemade87

I see you put a cam in . If you did not take the time to check preload on the lifters with the correct push rods length its very possible you will get some noise . Not sure how bad yours is but most ls motor will have a little lifter noise with a cam swap . Mostly with the bigger lift . Dont know how small your lift is and may not be that significant on your engine .

Also most aftermarket cams have a different base circle and will require different push rods . I would check with your cam supplier and see what is required .



This may be one other clue ( when the engine warms up ) . Could be an exhaust manifold leak . Some will not leak until warmed up . Sounds like a lifter tick .

Just a couple thinks to think about .

I had a speed shop install cam and new pushrods along with rebuild heads. I'm hoping it's a header leak. Going to pull them off tonight and see.

[izzy_Britton]

So you did a cam and rebuilt heads but you didn't do lifters for some reason? It is a 100$ job with all the heads removed already... Is there a reason that you didn't do the lifters?

Did you mess with the lifters at all while it was apart? Maybe got one in sideways? Typically lifters make noise when cold, and go away when warm. But I have seen only once in my life, where a roller lifter got stuck sideways and was riding the cam like a good ole non roller lifter and chewed the ever loving crap oitta the cam. It made me noise when warm than cold and I initially thought it was a rod bearing.

Some of the 4.8/5.3s have a little piston skirt slap going on OR wrist pin noise. Not too commoni don't think. But I would set my sights oh lifter noise if you never replaced them.

[Sweetc10]

Originally Posted by izzy_Britton

So you did a cam and rebuilt heads but you didn't do lifters for some reason? It is a 100$ job with all the heads removed already... Is there a reason that you didn't do the lifters?

Did you mess with the lifters at all while it was apart? Maybe got one in sideways? Typically lifters make noise when cold, and go away when warm. But I have seen only once in my life, where a roller lifter got stuck sideways and was riding the cam like a good ole non roller lifter and chewed the ever loving crap oitta the cam. It made me noise when warm than cold and I initially thought it was a rod bearing.

Some of the 4.8/5.3s have a little piston skirt slap going on OR wrist pin noise. Not too commoni don't think. But I would set my sights oh lifter noise if you never replaced them.

Speed shop did cam and told me heads needing done. So done whatever they recommended doing. If the lifters where changed I'm not sure. I don't see anything on receipt saying they had caged them but I'm not sure.

[72blu]

Have you got good oil pressure?

There is an O-ring on the oil pickup tube that often goes bad on these engines. A bad O-ring will allow air into the oil system causing the oil to perforate. The perforated oil won't properly lubricate the lifters causing a ticking sound. This happened to me and once I replaced the O-ring my oil pressure came back up and the engine no longer ticked.

[izzy_Britton]

Every ls engine I buy or obtain, engine or complete vehicle, the first thing I always do is head gaskets, exhaust manifold gaskets and lifters. 200$ of preventative maintenance. Quick and easy, takes 2 hours tops.

Crab you take a video with good quality sound, maybe you will get some better suggestions. Worth a shot.

[Sweetc10]

Originally Posted by 72blu

Have you got good oil pressure?

There is an O-ring on the oil pickup tube that often goes bad on these engines. A bad O-ring will allow air into the oil system causing the oil to perforate. The perforated oil won't properly lubricate the lifters causing a ticking sound. This happened to me and once I replaced the O-ring my oil pressure came back up and the engine no longer ticked.

Im using the stock 68 gauge and it shows around half way between low and high. I pulled the driver header and gasket still looked good. Drove it around neighborhood for few minutes it never got all the way to operating temperature but didn't tick yet. Ran our of time so will try again run it longer see what happens.

[Jstock85]

You ever get to the bottom of this? I'm curious to what the issue was.

[Sweetc10]

No I haven't made it to the bottom yet. Got a oil pressure gauge it idles about 25 lbs cold haven't drove it yet to get hot and see what it does hopefully tomorrow.

[Jstock85]

Have you eliminated any exhaust leaks as a possibility

[truckdude239]

25 psi at idle is little low all my 4.8s and 5.3s have always made arou d 40 at idme and bounced up to 65ish with gas

[Sweetc10]

Originally Posted by truckdude239

25 psi at idle is little low all my 4.8s and 5.3s have always made arou d 40 at idme and bounced up to 65ish with gas

Im in process of changing the oil pump now. A pain in the a $$ job . Will let yall know if it fixed it or I effed it up more.

[Sweetc10]

Well I replaced the oil pump a royal pain in the rump job with the motor in truck. But so far seems to have fixed the tapping sound.

[Jstock85]

Glad you got it figured out! Even though it was a PIA I was happy to hear it was a quick fix and not an internal engine issue.

[OKGMC4]

Just in case anyone finds this post trying to fix their own LS ticking noises it's almost always the oil pump O ring on the pickup tube. Super common. There are 2 different sizes of O ring and it depends on what style pickup you have. These O rings get hard and crack but most of the time the story goes..."I just did a cam swap..." since you have to pull the pump and remove the pickup to put the cam in, that's when it gets pinched, twisted, or nicked. The ticking starts 99 percent of the time at cylinder 7 and may or may not show low pressure on the gauge. More O ring info here...


https://www.lsxmag.com/news/identify...-your-ls-swap/

Good luck!

[homemade87]

Originally Posted by OKGMC4

Just in case anyone finds this post trying to fix their own LS ticking noises it's almost always the oil pump O ring on the pickup tube. Super common. There are 2 different sizes of O ring and it depends on what style pickup you have. These O rings get hard and crack but most of the time the story goes..."I just did a cam swap..." since you have to pull the pump and remove the pickup to put the cam in, that's when it gets pinched, twisted, or nicked. The ticking starts 99 percent of the time at cylinder 7 and may or may not show low pressure on the gauge. More O ring info here...


https://www.lsxmag.com/news/identify...-your-ls-swap/

Good luck!

This is correct about the o-ring being a problem . It can crack or be pinched and aerate the oil and cause the lifters to tick or if bad enough cause a knock at start up .

No need to remove the the pump for a basic cam swap on a ls engine if not having problems . But if replacing the pump or chain , best to take care and pay close attention the the o-ring when installing .

[BR3W CITY]

This probably isn't helpful, but its worth knowing on LSx engines; there is a lot of discussion about ticking, lots of ticking. The problem being that most of the folks are not all describing the same problem.

The "sewing machine" tic is the scary one. It loud, it doesn't go away with rpm, and sometimes it will get worse. This is the one you'll most often heard when there is a pushrod length issue, lack of oil, failing lifter. It looks like you had an oiling issue, which it sounds like you solved

But since we're talking ticking, lets mention the others.
Ticking that sounds wispy or breathy; this is one that most folks equate to an exhaust leak, and it usually is. Its also worth mentioning that if you switch from a cast manifold to a tubular header, you are losing material thickness and noise dampening. Pipes resonate. Some folks will switch to a tube header and swear they have an ongoing exhaust leak, when in fact the ticking noise they hear is the valve events being more audible.

Injector noise. This is one that usually throws people who are new to LS motors. The damn injectors are noisy...always. If you've tested injectors off the car, that clack they make during cycle ain't quite. This one won't change with RPM, and you tend to stop noticing it as part of the engine sound.

Valve Events. This one is worst on big cam cars, but can even be noticed on stock genIII-IV motors. The design of the valvetrain means reaaaaly high speed and force upon valve closing events. This is exacerbated by big cams on older cam cores (like my Tsunami for example). The cam events are violent, and that makes noise. FWIW, the genIII-IV motors make around 90db at idle in a test cell. GenV stuff and on, has significantly lowered the force on closing valve events to reduce wear on valvetrain components and reduce noise, for about 68db in the same conditions.

[OKGMC4]

Originally Posted by homemade87

This is correct about the o-ring being a problem . It can crack or be pinched and aerate the oil and cause the lifters to tick or if bad enough cause a knock at start up .

No need to remove the the pump for a basic cam swap on a ls engine if not having problems . But if replacing the pump or chain , best to take care and pay close attention the the o-ring when installing .

Sorry. On both of mine I put in a new timing set and went through the whole mess. You are right. Technically speaking no need to pull the pump for cam only.