Valve-train Noise Questions

[l008com]

Before I even start, I just want it to be clear that I'm not asking 'how' to fix this stuff. I'm absolutely having my mechanic do anything that needs to be done related to this. I just have a lot of questions and rather than waste his expensive time, I figured I'd waste your free time

So when my truck was new-to-me (with something like 110,000K) it ran great. But when it was cold, it would tick a little bit. After it warmed up, the tick would tend to go away. My mechanic thought it sounded like valvetrain noise and suggested trying 0w-30 oil.

- which i haven't done yet, but I'm going to try some next oil change -

However since then, the sound has gotten worse. It doesn't really clear up any more, it's just always there. I have zero engine experience, so to me it sounds like bad piston seals or something serious that will require an engine rebuild, which I really don't want. He's going to take a close look soon but still doesn't think it's anything but valvetrain noise.

So what causes 'ticking' and 'rapping' type sounds from the valvetrian?
How likely is it that some different oil will take care of it?
What would be involved in doing a proper fix on something like this, which I assume means something like taking the valve covers off and replacing.... rockers? rods? other words I haven't seen on TV?

I know I'm wait out of my league when it comes to stuff like this, I'd just like to better understand what's going on with my truck. The main reason being that I have lots of upgrades I want to do to this thing, but I don't want to start spending more money if the engine doesn't have a lot of life left.

 

[Capote]

How loud of a ticking noise is this? A ticking is a lot different than a dreaded knocking noise. On most occasions a ticking noise located where the valve cover is, is lifters that are sticking a bit. Are you using synthetic oil as of right now? Synthetic oils have detergents in them, which can help fight build up in lifters for-instance. If you are already and the ticking stayed consistent, I would suggest adding a quart of Marvel Mystery Oil with your next oil change, just substitute a quart of it for the quart of oil. I've heard many people say it helps with noisy lifters and have seen videos to prove that as well.

That's my suggestion as of right now going off of what you have said so far.

 

[l008com]

I really don't know how to answer your question of how loud it is, as it's all subjective is I don't have much experience with this sort of thing. I can try to make a short video (for the audio) and if it comes out well, post that.

But until that happens, to answer your other questions...
I can't seem to find any oil change related paperwork. I think I've had 1, maybe 2 oil changes since I've owned this truck. I don't do many miles per year, and i've only had it a year and a half (and it wasn't my daily driver that whole time). I want to say the first change was conventional and the second was maxlife synthetic. But I'm just not sure. I let the computer tell me when I need an oil change so I have no clue how many miles it lets me go between them. It's also possible I've only had one change and it was maxlife. Also possible I've only had one and it was regular, and I just planned on doing maxlife next time around. I'm shocked I can't find the paperwork anywhere.

That MMO stuff, do I just use a quart and stay on a regular oil change schedule? Or is it like I've read where you can use a quart of automatic transmission fluid in the oil, but you have to change it after a few miles?

 

[Capote]

I really don't know how to answer your question of how loud it is, as it's all subjective is I don't have much experience with this sort of thing. I can try to make a short video (for the audio) and if it comes out well, post that.

But until that happens, to answer your other questions...
I can't seem to find any oil change related paperwork. I think I've had 1, maybe 2 oil changes since I've owned this truck. I don't do many miles per year, and i've only had it a year and a half (and it wasn't my daily driver that whole time). I want to say the first change was conventional and the second was maxlife synthetic. But I'm just not sure. I let the computer tell me when I need an oil change so I have no clue how many miles it lets me go between them. It's also possible I've only had one change and it was maxlife. Also possible I've only had one and it was regular, and I just planned on doing maxlife next time around. I'm shocked I can't find the paperwork anywhere.

That MMO stuff, do I just use a quart and stay on a regular oil change schedule? Or is it like I've read where you can use a quart of automatic transmission fluid in the oil, but you have to change it after a few miles?

A video might help, sometimes it's hard to hear specific noises on the audio though, but give it a shot I guess.

If your oil is dirty that can lead lifter noise as dirty oil deposits will build up inside the lifters. My last oil change I went 6,000 miles vs. my usual 3,000 mile interval (I know you don't need to do it at 3k mile intervals, but I do out of habit and because I drive my truck harder than most) and I had some lifter noise. Once I changed my oil & filter, the lifter noise went away a day or two later.

People do the Marvel Mystery Oil in two ways: Flush or "Additive". Some put a 20% or in our case a quart in a day before an oil change to give it some time to work and then follow up with a fresh oil change, just as in the case if they chose to go with Automatic Trans Fluid (an amazing detergent). Both are done as a flush method for the oil in this case. While others will just add the Marvel Mystery Oil to see if it'll clear the ticking whether or not they plan on changing the oil soon.

My questions of oil changes and suggestion of Marvel Mystery Oil are just to pin point whether or not this is a valve ticking vs. another issue; of coarse this is all speculation until we can see if this makes the noise cease or quiet down.

 

[mrrsm]

Brian from "Briansmobile1" Youtube Channel puts on a Perfect Clinic that echoes all of @Capote 's information and the man shows a step-by-step visual method to solve the dreaded Noisy Lifter Problem with the GM 5.3L Engines are plagued with. If you suggest this video to your Mechanic as the First Thing to Try... He may thank you for Brian's idea on doing this work without having to pull the heads and replace the lifters when this treatment might solve the problem for a whole lot less bread. :>)

 

[l008com]

I'm searching and searching for some record of an oil change and I can't find one. I bought this truck in November of 2015, and I believe I've put approximately 9,000 miles on it. I think I might be running the original oil. Which would explain the valve noise. I swear I remember getting an oil change, but it's looking more and more like I did not. I sure hope the dealership I bought it from did one, and didn't just reset the computer without actually changing it. When I bought the truck, it had 98% oil life left. I've gone through my Trailblazer file twice, definitely no receipt in there for oil.

 

[therealsethallen]

9k miles is way too many on a 5.3. I wouldn't go past 5k on a DOD engine. You should have changed it when you bought it. If it comes down to something worse than that, don't do an engine flush, they're known to do way more harm than good in many cases. I'd start with an oil change, sans additive.

 

[Mooseman]

I'd try a flush first. I've heard some good things about Motor Medic's engine flush. Do that and then an oil change, might clear it up. Can't hurt.

Did the noise in the video sound similar to yours?

 

[l008com]

Did the noise in the video sound similar to yours?

Not exactly the same, but yeah fairly similar I'd say.

 

[l008com]

Does the computer give you any other information about the last time the oil monitor was reset? Like milage since last reset, or date of last reset?

 

[Sparky305]

I came here today in search of suggestions to address lifter noise as well. Not to insult your evaluation of the problem, but I would like to point out something else that might initially sound similar to a lifter tick. I have more recently discovered that the 5.3 is prone to breaking the studs on the exhaust manifolds. This also can create a light ticking noise depending how bad the exhaust leak is and it can vary in volume significantly. So with that in mind, it doesn't hurt to do a visual check to make sure that all of these are in tact as well.

 

[Sparky305]

I have never torn into one of these, but I love the video. Once he started showing chemicals and the general idea of accessing the lifters, I was thinking of using a long straw or tube to get some Seafoam or Chemtool directly on the lifter as well. I have one other idea while performing this process that I want to bounce off the more experienced guys. Would it be a good or bad idea to use compressed air and a long air wand to blow into the lifter? The thought is to clear it out. I would first blow it out then add then chemically soak it for a couple of hours. I would then blow them out one more time and perform a second soaking as i reassemble. everything. Thoughts anyone?

 

[Mooseman]

Interesting idea. I'd leave the rocker arm on so you have a tight seal all the way to the lifter, use a rubber tip air blower on the hole in the rocker and go to town. If you get the oil out of the lifter, then the cleaner will be more concentrated. I might even use the air to push the cleaner into the lifter too.

Another possible reason Biansmobile's fix worked is that he relieved the pressure on the lifter, allowing the internal plunger to fully extend. That alone may have unstuck it or broke apart the crud that was hanging it up.

 

[mrrsm]

I like the Aeration idea as well... but my only concern with the procedure would be that once the muck was pushed out, backwards and then sideways into into the lateral Oil Galleries... if enough Compressed Air entered there, it might vacate the short oil passages; perhaps even reaching down to the Gerotor Oil Pump Gallery feed in and accidentally make it Air Bound. If the pump were to cavitate on start-up with oil channels made Bone dry... bigger problems might ensue. I know its seems like a remote possibility ...but perhaps worth considering.

 

[l008com]

I wonder if I might have dirty noisey lifters and a mild case of the exhaust header gasket problem too. That's more or less what it sounds like.

Also I'm going to stop by the local valvoline place I use and see if they can give me a print out of all of my oil changes. I swear I've done at least one but records indicate nada. I just today crossed over *my* 10,000th mile owning this truck. I'm going to get to the bottom of this one way or another. I want to know for many reasons, including if my truck only wants me to get an oil change once every 11,000 miles, i'm no longer going to listen to it.

 

[therealsethallen]

For the love of god, please don't take your truck to one of those fifteen minute oil change joints. That's like thinking the guys that work at AutoZone are mechanics. If you like your truck you won't take it there. Go to a local indie shop. Ask around, at work and at the coffee shop who the best in your area is. Chains like that do more damage to cars than people that can barely read watching some YouTube videos. Manifolds on 5.3s (Especially here in Mass) are prone to cracking, it could be a bad oil pump, or noisy lifters, 2005+ 5.3s seem have oil pump problems after 120k, especially if you use cheap oil. I don't believe in flushes or additives, I'd rather piss in my crankcase than add anything other than oil.


Pick a millage denomination, may it be 3k or 5k and change them on that interval.

 

[l008com]

I don't think fast oil change guys are mechanics, but I have a hard time believing it's "dangerous" to get your oil changed there. You drain it, change the filter and refill it. Using the same oil my mechanic would have used. Sure one of the guys could take a dump into my oil filler port but so could my mechanic if he wanted to.

 

[mrrsm]

@therealsethallen is imparting some very valuable wisdom here...

The people who work at those Lube Joints invariably overfill either the Crankcase with Motor Oil or the Transmission with Fluid and the Danger is that is that Too Much of a Good Thing inside of your Engine is Bad. In the case of the Engine... over-filling the Crankcase often happens when they skip the part about replacing the Old Oil Filter with a New One that they should Pre-Fill first...and then add in the Full Compliment of Oil that winds up being a greater amount than should be poured into the Engine. When the Engine is over-filled with Motor Oil... the Crankshaft Throws can scoop up the lubricant as it whirls inside and whip that Oil into a Brown Froth that can cause the Oil Pump to cavitate and fail as only liquids are incompressible and air cannot be picked up and pumped out by the Oil Pump.

In the case of the Transmission ... I can explain from personal experience that having let my guard down on only one occasion... I wound up discovering the problem later during a visit to the local Dealership for a Safety Recall that when they inspected the fluid levels...the Transmission had been waaaay over-filled. For the most part... the minimum wage workers at these places don't give a Tinker's Damn for the customers...and after doing 30-50 of these jobs or more per a week... They all look the same to them. Likewise... the problems from over-filling the Transmission are that it can cause seals to fail and prevent the correct circulation of the right levels of the fluid due to heat expansion of a greater volume of fluid than it can handle.

 

[Mooseman]

Prefill the oil filter? You really think they prefill the oil filter? I don't think any shop, quick or regular, does this. A lot of engines you can't even do this because of the angle the filter is in. We do it because we have the time and we care about our machines but I can't do it to our Hondas because of the angle.

I cringe at the thought of going to quick lube places. The price they charge for a dino lube change with cardboard (insert name of crap brand) filter, I can do a synthetic with top of the line filter.

That being said, I saw a Toyota Camry taxi with 500k km pull in to a Jiffy Lube (I was there for an E-Test). Asked the driver and he said that it's the original engine. He said that he changes it religiously at 5k km.

Although I have the ability to do them for now, eventually I won't and will have to look at some place to have it done. I even loathe having to do it in my driveway in winter so it may come sooner rather than later.

 

[l008com]

Ok I got my oil changed at 113,857. That's about 5,000 miles from purchase and about 5,000 miles ago. So I have regained my trust in the oil life monitor on my truck.

The oil change place started doing email-only receipts and the email they have on file for me is NOEMAIL@NOEMAIL.COM
Shrug.

Thats good that I wasn't murdering my engine. But bad because 10,000 mile old oil means an easy fix for valve noise. 5,000 mile old oil means, in my mind, that it's less likely to be cured by a simple oil change. But I'll find out next week.

 

[RedRocketZ28]

My Rainier had a broken exhaust manifold bolt and it ticked on start-up and would go away. Eventually it got worse and would do it all the time but the warmer it got the less I noticed it. I have since fixed it but that's where I would start. Take a look at all the exhaust manifold bolts. I wouldn't be surprised if one or two weren't broken off.

My buddy has a Rainier 5.3 as well and his has 83k miles on it and he has a broken exhaust manifold bolt as well.

 

[Reprise]

Been following this thead. I don't have a solution to the lifter noise, just a suggestion or two for the OP

In your second post, you mentioned that you don't drive this vehicle much, and (later) that you've had the existing oil in there for about 5000 mi (not terrible for an OLM-equipped vehicle) and 18mos (this could be improved upon).

I would change the oil once a year, regardless of how few miles have been put on the engine in that year. Manufacturers (including GM) recommend this; while unopened oil will 'keep' more or less indefinitely, once it has some use on it - even if only a little - it will break down over time (acidity being one of the first things to get out of whack).

Also - regarding keeping track of your changes - if you do it once a year, you'll know when it was last done. And if you keep a maintenance spreadsheet (on your PC) you'll have the date / mileage as well. Just a thought - it's what I do as my truck isn't a daily driver either.

 

[Mooseman]

A small log book in the truck is also useful. And I'm pretty sure there are apps for that.

 

[Reprise]

Great idea. I suppose the reason why I don't use an 'app' is because I don't want to get grease on my phone- but a greasy laptop is fine, I guess.

 

[l008com]

Update:
My truck was having noticeable valve noise. THEN I broke a few exhaust bolts and started to get some sound/gas escaping there. So the sound went from subtle, to much much louder.

I have since had the exhaust bolts and gaskets replaced and that sound was totally gone. But what's left is still the much more subtle valve train noise. It's not really loud at startup any more. It's about the same sound all the time. Sometimes it hard to hear it at all. Other times, it's very clear.

So before I pay my mechanic a bunch more money to tear the valves apart, I was thinking i'd try to clean it myself some. I am NOT using transmission fluid in my oil! But I was thinking about using seafoam in there ad their recommended 1oz per quart rate, for a week or so, then changing the oil. <- and potentially doing this twice back to back. The sound is just light enough that I feel like it could very well just be dirt and sludge etc. The electronic throttle lag really keeps the RPMs low unless you mash on the pedal, so I could see how normal driving could get things dirty.

Thoughts on this plan? I feel ok putting a little seafoam in my oil, I do not feel ok putting transmission fluid in there.

 

[Mooseman]

I'd use an engine flush instead before an oil change. Much more aggressive and there have been some reported successes. Check on Youtube for engine oil flush.

 

[l008com]

I was driving around tonight... I can't tell if the sound is getting louder or if I'm just getting more tuned to hear it. But I noticed if I kept it in 2nd and drive it to 2000-2500rpm, the sound is very loud. Almost silent at 1000 rpm, and quiets back down again after 3000rpm. I wish I could record it some how. I can't tell if it's valve noise or anything else.

 

[Mooseman]

Does it kinda sound like a knock? Mine has had that for a long time, scares me to death but it keeps working. I thought it was the DoD valvetrain so I replaced everything, still there.

 

[l008com]

Honestly I don't have the experience with engines to really know the difference. I feel like valve noise is probably. I also feel like the fact it is very subtle at 1000 rpms, gets louder and louder to 2500 rpm, then fades again, may be a clue. Most noises will get louder with RPM right? Not come and go?

 

[Mooseman]

Definitely does sound like what mine does. Does it do it also while parked revving it? If you can, do a video of the noise.

 

[l008com]

I'll try but in the past, I've had a hard time capturing engine sounds with my phone. But I'll try to do a video and see what I get.

 

[l008com]

Update:

I did the flush with amsoil, then put some fresh oil in there (the old oil was only at 50% life). Unfortunately, it made absolutely no difference at all. Theres still just as much ticking. Which means, some days there's very pronounced ticking, other days there's very little.

My original plan was to do the flush, then wait a bit, then run sea foam in the oil for a bit, then change the oil again.

I'll still do the seafoam since that was the plan, but I don't think it's going to have much affect, since the first step did basically nothing. The post-flush oil was a little browner than I expected, but I didn't check it out before the flush, so I don't really know how much the flush "dirtied" it up.

I guess after the sea-foam, maybe I'll try some 0w-40 oil instead of 0w-30.

 

[l008com]

Well, so far no improvement with the sea foam. I still have some miles left to go, but I'm thinking my problem just isn't dirt in the valvetrain. It will be good to go back to my full synthetic oil, that does reduce the sound a little. I wasn't able to find my 0w oil in 40 weight, so I got the same 0w-30 I had before. Maybe at my next oil change, I'll try some other synthetic 5w-40.

 

[Reprise]

I'd stay with 5w-30. If anything, you'd want a *thinner* oil, not a thicker one, to get the oil circulating up to the top end faster than it is now.

Not sure what full synth you were using, but give Penn Platinum a try, if you haven't already. It pours thinner than M1 for sure, but it's a very good oil, and every car I've used it in ran "quieter, quicker", while the used oil analyses (UOA) I did always came back good. IIRC, they now make a 'higher mileage' version, as well (which probably pours just as thin, but it'll have seal swellers, etc., as the HM oils do.

With the mileage you drive, you can make that a once-a-year change without worry. Just keep an eye on the level - and try and at least start the engine once a week & let it get up to temp. The longer you go between starts, the more noise you'll hear on startup.

As for the ongoing noise after warmup... IMHO, this is fairly common with GM's V8s - with a pushrod / OHV, there's more potential for noise, vs. an OHC design. I see yours is an '08, so you have the DOD - if you haven't already deactivated it, I would do so before too much longer.

For my own LM4 (no DoD), I'm fairly lucky - about 145K mi. on the clock, and I only have a little lifter noise on startup; goes away after about a minute, and I don't hear a peep out of it afterward (and, FYI - I use a synth blend right now, not a full synth, due to a leak I haven't tracked down yet).

I mention the above so that you know...yours *can* be (relatively) noise-free - just a matter of finding out the 'cause' (dirt vs. mechanical, etc.) Much better for you that it's in the top end, and not the bottom. But as long as you disable DOD (do that via your upcoming tune, for sure), a slight tick when warm, that doesn't get worse over time shouldn't be something that makes you lose sleep at night - at least it's not piston slap (which a lot of late-model GM engines suffer from, on cold startup - IMO, that is a *really* annoying noise)

Oh, one more thing - you mention in another post that you wanted to lower your warm idle speed below 600 RPM to save gas. I'd forego this as well - first, you won't save much fuel, and worse, the oil pressure is going to be lower as a result. If you've got circulation issues on your top end, you don't want to be contributing toward making them worse through potential oil starvation.

I happen to know / live close by to a well-known 'hypermiler' - and know most of his techniques to avoid excessive idling in cars that don't have an auto-stop system. In short, he will key off, not only at a train crossing, but at stop lights, if he knows he'll be waiting a while. Yes, that's technically harder on the starting / charging systems - but it's better than lowering the idle, which is not something I've ever heard him or his gas-saving buddies mention as a technique.

 

[Reprise]

OP - I ran across this while I was doing some other research just now. Some great info on our V8s re: oil recommendations to help combat noise / consumption (yours is among the 'first' of the Gen IV engines; mine is almost the 'last' of the Gen IIIs, for reference).

Site is highly recommended - I've visited them for years, and I don't know of a more authoritative site on lubrication than that one. Their members talk about lubricants like we talk about GMT360s / 370s ... LOL