Valve Adjustment Question

[bmc69]

Welcome aboard GoBoysGo...

X3 on adding an oil additive to possibly help with a "sticky lifter". It used to be pretty common back in the day. Because of it's high detergent qualities I used to use auto transmission fluid, like Dexron. Add 1 qt (don't overfill, drain out a qt if needed) and when the "clicking" stopped run it another week and change the oil.

This was very common 50 yrs ago and guess what? Your engine was designed and built about 50 yrs ago...

Best of luck, adding a can of miracle oil will not hurt your engine. Give it a try after checking all suggestions above about wear, etc.

ATF has always been my "go to" additive to try and quiet noisy lifters. Sometimes it works wonders..other times it does nothing. Always worth a try IMO.

 

[Southbronco1]

Any updates on your noise, valve tap, lifters, pushrods, rockers, adjustments, non-ethanol gas and/or snake oil etc.? I'm just curious I may be headed down the same path.

Thanks Lucas

Hey Lucas, well I learned a few things during that process. One was that I do not have adjustable valves. Ha! after all that. Its a 302 motor with original valve train and thus not adjustable. In ended up doing a bunch of unnecessary work, such as pulling out my push rods and inspecting them for warp. They were fine. In the end, I took the advice of many and use a oil additive (cant remember which one) and the tap went away immediately. lol. A mechanic buddy told me to use about half of what the product recommended. Still running smoothly and no tap.

 

[Rustytruck]

in the old days like when your Bronco was built we use to use paraffin based oils and change the oil and filter every 3000 miles. in that time the engines would build up sludge. it was common to burn I/2 a quart every 3000 miles as the engine aged it would burn a quart every 3000 miles so you had to add oil to the engine. if you cared how your engine ran before you changed your oil you would add 1/2 to 1 quart of ATF to the oil and run it for 250-500 miles. the ATF was a really good cleaner and dissolved allot of the stuff that plugged up hydraulic lifters I still add ATF to my oil every other oil change. we now have better oils and engines run hotter to decrease wear and stay cleaner inside so they last a lot longer. so for the most part you don't have to band-aid them to keep them running. I bought a used Nissan Pathfinder that the previous owner neglected the oil change it only had 30,000 miles. I was getting error codes and replacing parts to no avail. I started adding ATF to the oil before oil change and it cleaned up the problematic valve train in that engine by the third oil change. so you might want to think about that with your engine when you have no other options.

 

[markatherton]

No one has mentioned this, but you should be running an oil that contains ZINK such as Valvoline VR1 or, add "zink additive" when you change oil.