Valve adjustment?

Dirtautoguy · April 16, 2013

Recently I have noticed a tick coming from my 350 vortec it's alot louder when it's cold and gets quieter when it's warmed up and sometimes goes away even. I can tell almost exactly where it's coming from and it sounds like its just under the valve cover. On the second from the front on the driver side.

I'm wondering if it might need valves adjusted maybe? Performance seems fine and the noise doesn't sound like the piston or like death is coming just like maybe something is loose or needs adjusted? What are symptoms or other ideas?

00Silverado4x4 · April 16, 2013

I could be wrong but I don't think you can adjust the valves on your engine. It could be just a little low on oil, time for an oil change or the engine is starting to wear some internal parts down.

kstruckcountry · April 16, 2013

It's just wear. You could get the heads and valves redone, but that won't be too cheap.

Squirrely · April 17, 2013

Your lifters are hydraulic so they auto adjust. There could be a number of things wrong here...maybe a bad lifter that bleeds down causing the tick until oil pressure builds it back.

Or... it could be an exhaust leak?

Either way, you can pull the rocker covers and take a closer listen.

ChevyTech77 · April 17, 2013

That engine has adjustable rocker arms but if that is where the noise is coming from, you need to find out what caused the excessive play and fix that. Unless the rocker arms were recently off for other repairs and weren't adjusted properly.

This engine suffers from piston noise when cold. Be sure to not mistake this noise for that.