Me and my dad have been working on an 81 Z28 Camaro with a 350 for a little while now, it was pretty sound mechanically until recently. We replaced the oil pan gasket and lifted the engine up about 3 inches to get the gasket off. After the car was ready we started it. After it started we could hear a ticking noise like the one the valve train makes only on steroids. We turned the engine off and tried to make sense of it. It ticks at idle and startup as well as revving the engine. We checked the manifold, the exhaust connections spark plugs, fly wheel, the butterfly valve between the exhaust and manifold, the valve train, and the belts. We let it run until oil was was circulating throughout the engine but it still ticks. It hadn't done it or been noticeable until after we raised and lowered the engine, we did disconnect everything we had to that would impede it from lifting. If anyone has suggestions or knows the problem or how to fix it, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[QUOTE=Fuzzie_Koala;722238]Me and my dad have been working on an 81 Z28 Camaro with a 350 for a little while now, it was pretty sound mechanically until recently. We replaced the oil pan gasket and lifted the engine up about 3 inches to get the gasket off. After the car was ready we started it. After it started we could hear a ticking noise like the one the valve train makes only on steroids. We turned the engine off and tried to make sense of it. It ticks at idle and startup as well as revving the engine. We checked the manifold, the exhaust connections spark plugs, fly wheel, the butterfly valve between the exhaust and manifold, the valve train, and the belts. We let it run until oil was was circulating throughout the engine but it still ticks. It hadn't done it or been noticeable until after we raised and lowered the engine, we did disconnect everything we had to that would impede it from lifting. If anyone has suggestions or knows the problem or how to fix it, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Edit: We made sure that there is enough room between the fan and the fan shroud.

 

The simple answer is a collapsed lifter. Most likely when you moved the pan around you stirred up some dirt, all it takes is a tinny piece of carbon to jam up the lifter.

Without hearing it could be a lot of things.

If it is dirt in a lifter you can sometime switch over to a good synthetic and a good 10-20 micron filter and it will clear up. I like Mobil one oil and filters but there are a lot of other options like royal purple ect.

 

In locating an exhaust leak, you might fill a squeeze bottle, like ketchup/mustard bottle, with ATF, and bring engine up to operating temperature, then squeeze some ATF into carb and look for smoke on exhaust.

 

Thank you guys for the help, we found out that the dust plate covering the bell housing was scraping against the flywheel. Once we bent the cover away from the flywheel the noise stopped and everything seems to running fine now. Thank you guys for the help though, it's always good to check those things, just in case.