So guys here my question.Whats the best way to find witch one of my lifters is tapping? I need to replace my head gasket and thought while Im this far might as well take care of this problem to. should I soak the new lifter in oil before its installed? its supposed to preload it?- 4.9L-I-6

 

You can take a hose and hold it up to your ear, and move it down the engine side cover and see if that pinpoints it. Or you could just buy a whole new set. Once you get the lifters out, you need to see how worn they are, and take a peek at the camshaft if you can.

Your valve train is not adjustable, so just tighten the rocker bolts down and the pre-load is factory set.

You don't need to soak the lifter, but it is a good idea to get some moly lube and put a smear on the bottom of the lifter before installing it back in the engine. The lifter to cam area is just lubed by splash, so the moly grease helps it during initial start up and break in.

 

Thank you Dave! I think Ill replace all.

 

When i got my truck the valve cover gasket and the manifold gaskets were shot so i replaced them when i started the eng, there was a lot of lifter noise. So i pulled the valve cover and dumped marvel mystery oil down the push rods and let it sit a day ,put a new gasket on and started it "no more lifter noise". But i did notice the newer gasket was thicker than the first one so i don't know if the first gasket was to thin and the rockers were hitting the cover or not . but no more lifter noise now. I was thinking about replacing the lifters but that meant removing the a/c mount , distributer, coil every thing on that side of eng to remove the side cover. I've ben told that the cam is worn in with original lifters and just new lifters would not ware in rite and spin like they should and ware the cam out . Marvel mystery oil i think solved my lifter noise probs.