I have a '67 that is giving me a lot of trouble with the ticking. My dad and I adjusted the timing for the distributor and pulled off the valve covers to adjust the rockers. After doing all that the the car was pretty much tick free until a few weeks ago. One of the driver's side lifters seemed to have come loose. We took off the valve cover again and adjusted the lifter that was making the noise. When we got everything back together the car was quiet again but after a quick 5 minute test drive the ticking resumed from the same lifter. Anyone know what might be causing this? I'm wondering if we've got a collapsed lifter on our hands or if I should just try the transmission fluid trick and see if it frees anything up. On a side note... the car also started making a "chirping" noise recently. Almost like a bird whistling. Mostly happens at stop lights after the car has gotten warmed up. The noise stops when the car is in park, but when its in gear the chirping resumes. It's fairly loud too, you can easily hear it from a good 50 feet away.

 

Try this stuff. I had a lifter that was always ticking and somebody told me to try Valve Medic. Get your car up to operating temp then dumpa bottleof this in, drive it for a few minutes and the ticking should go away. It may take a few times of doing this stuff to get it to go away, but it workedon my car. Make sure to change your oil everytime you put a new bottle in too. Good luck!

 

If the "chirping" is coming from the engine, it's a lifter. I had the same problem when a needle bearing in one of my roller lifters failed, the freeplay causes the lifter to slam down onto the cam and the pushrod to seat and unseat, makes a loud metallic chirping sound

 

I used to use a product called "Engine Tune-up" fromJustice Brothers back in the 80's. it works miracles and frees up sticky lifters. I stopped using it cause JB went out ofbussiness here on the west coast for several years, I see they're now back in socal, so i'm gonna have to find out who sells it.

 

I have always wondered if a person could fully colapse a defective hytraulic lifter, and then set the lash like a mechanical lifter....

 

you know, thats a damn good question[8D]

 

what exactly is the difference in a mechanical lifter and a hydraulic lifter?

 

Amechanical lifter does not use hydrostatic force to act upon a plunger during the valve lift operation.A hyd lifer always has some preload on the valve due to the plunger spool/oil/ spring. Sounds technical butessentially there are little holes inthe outer lifter body that allow oil to enter into a inner spoolchamber in a hydraulic lifter which then compresses against the spool at a specific rate upon valve actuation. While a mechanical lifter is a hunk of metal without the inner spool and just goes up/down and requires a "lash" (clearance)adjustment.

 

I have the same problem constantly need to adjust valve lash pita but new heads maybe

 

so could i put hydraulic lifters in my 289? i take it that they are better than solid lifters, i had thought about going with a roller cam, but i dont want to have to machine the block to accomadate the tie bars