Left my oil change too late

It is probably only noisy lifters. Nothing to worry about and you can get an oil additive that should stop the noise. If you search around on this forum you should be able to find a thread on this with the different additives people have used and if they are any good or not.

 

lol noisy lifters.. i dont understand how lifters can be noisy... i mean they're jammed in pretty hard between the cam lobes and the rockers soo if anything it'd be in the valve springs/rockers or maybe u got a bent pushrod

id rip the rocker covers off and just inspect the pushrods to make sure they're not bent and make sure the rockers are bolted in properly (happened to me once)

i can tell you first hand its not that expensive to replace the entire valvetrain...

something else that springs to mind is your valve stem seals.. when were they replaced??? (on the spare heads i have some are burst right open and loose inside the valve spring that could explain the noise)

 

Dude, you've noticed how your lifters are filled with oil? The pushrod seat is on a plunger that get's moved slightly by the rod and the oil and spring acts as a damper or cushion for the valvetrain. Imagine the effect on the valvetrain if they were either
a)frozen solid from crap and gunk.
b) not holding oil so well.

This is how you can have noisy lifters. Sounds like your valvetrain had been in the wars and while it is easy to check, I wouldn't put money on loose rockers/bent rods being the problem here, especially seeing as the noise goes away after a few seconds, which is indicative of worn lifters taking a while to get up and running.

 

Engine flush to clean all the gunge out then new oil. Worked a treat for my VN.

 

Heavier weight oil for cold start

 

Yeah true, but given that he's only got a few seconds of rattle I wouldn't worry too much about running a heavier oil.

 

Saved me $1,600 for a crank regrind and other stuff. The problem was as you discribed. Changed oil and the thing started clacking on startup. I felt sick. Wynnes engine flush and problem was fixed. I gave the bloke who sugested it a carton of beer.

 

Hope it works too.
By the way I dont drink beer and not after any but just passing on info in this very good forum.

 

Yep you can change lifters with the heads still on, you have to remove inlet manifold, rockers and pushrods to get to them. Personally I wouldn't be too worried, a friend of mine did something similar to an XH ute and it ran with slightly noisy lifters on startup no problems for another year before he sold it. Try the engine flush and a heavier weight oil first if you're really worried though, chances are it's not a big problem. If neither of those help, might as well pull the rocker covers just in case paradox is right and your valvetrain is a little bit unhappy.

If neither of those help and you're still worried then lifters aren't too hard to change. Although I've been advised not to run new lifters on an old cam and am currently in the process of buying a new cam for exactly that reason. Plus the little bit of extra grunt will be nice.

 

The heavier oil (eg 20-70) will not help if its gunge type blocked lifter.

Only good for worn engine bearings to help with oil pressure.

 

lifters man dont worry

 

Be carful though if your engine has done high ks enging flush can do more harm than good :< better doing very regular oil and filter changes{ every 5000Ks} i do it with diesel oil cos ive got 362000Ks on mine the diesel oil cleans out the sludge that builds up, enging flush is very harsh on high k engins and have seen it compleatly fk up some engins but great for lower k engines but how many vn - vr engines are low k?

 

BUT if you have a blocked lifter or clater on startup. How do you unblock it??

Yes regular oil n filters is the way to go but as the heading says 'left too late'

Also the timing chain can make a racket with the change of throttle position.