You are sure that it is not an exhaust leak somewhere?

Lots of people love to point to lifters because of the AFM failure but there are really not a whole bunch of lifter failures in general.

 

No; I'm not sure of anything at this point. <g>

Can an exhaust leak sound metallic - like a light hammer tapping on the block?

And be intermittent as well?

 

if youre losing oil pressure the bottom end might be toast
New engine again sadly

 

It is the intermittent-ness of it that puzzles me. How can the oil pressure be idling at just a few pounds and the 'lifter' hammering away one minute - and then the next minute the oil pressure is 75 pounds and the engine is quiet?

 

light hammer tapping on block does point away from exhaust leak however I have heard some explain it that way before. If it goes away after a while it could be the expansion of metal is causing it to close the leak as well

I would recommend smoke testing the exhaust just to be sure. Or pull valve cover to see for a rocker that looks incorrect

 

Used engine could have been a sludge puppy, oil passages, pickup, etc partially clogged. Now you have oil restriction and will soon cause major damage.

 

I had a ticking/rattling sound and I thought it was a lifter, then crawled under the car and it got louder. Someone said it was a cracked fly wheel. I had the Catalytic converter checked and it wasn't that. It turned out it was the Bendix spring in the starter, it was not retracting and it kept hitting the fly wheel. It's an easy check, just drop the starter and see if the starter gear flops back and forth.

 

I forgot to add that I had oil pressure that would be fine one minute and then drop so that the dash warning light came on. It was the O ring between the oil pump and the sump pick up tube. Had it done for $300 , fixed it.

 

4.3 doesn’t have pickup tube o ring.

 

try changing your oil and filter again, could be restricted filter

 

he said he fixed it

 

Must be a 5.3

 

OK - six more months gone:

No noise and solid oil pressure UNLESS I change the oil. After an oil change the "bad lifter noise" comes back by the next day. And continues until I add a can of Seafoam. Then by the next day the noise is gone again.

I cut open a used oil filter and found it pretty 'tarry' inside. After that I stopped changing the oil and started changing just the oil filter every 1000 miles.

Somebody earlier mentioned a 'sludge monster' or something about like that - and that's all I can think of at this point. Although why SeaFoam 'fixes' the noise sort of escapes me. <g>

 

Take a valve cover off and look inside to see what kind of condition the inside of the engine is. And what oil are you putting into it?

 

It's in a van. It too major of an adventure for me - taking a valve cover off just to peek inside. <g> A remarkable amount of tarry yak does quickly end up in new oil filters - so I suspect that your suspicion is correct.

HEY! That reminds me: is there a larger oil filter which will screw on to a 4.3 in place of the stock size oil filter?

I long ago fell into the habit of using Mobil 1 in everything. My father ran an oil refinery and I worked in the research labs while Mobil 1 was being developed. And I was extremely impressed by it's performance.

One difference is that although this 4.3 always gets Mobil 1 - the manual calls for 5W30 and I use 10W40. The engine never see temperatures below about 45-50 degrees though.

 

Shakenfake

I think you were looking at the wrong post ?? Don't know.