I have a slight misfire and can slightly hear a tick or tap and want to check my rods.

I know its easy as pulling the valve cover and the rockers, but my manual says to get the piston on cylinder 1 at TDC for installation. How would I do that?

 

#1 is the 1st piston on the drivers side, get a TQ wrench and turn the motor by hand and have someone put a flat screwdriver in the cyl one spark plug hole (after you remove it) and once the top of the piston touches the flat screwdriver stop turning the motor over, and if it's ticking it could also be lifters

 

Pulling the spark plugs first aids in easier turning of the engine by hand.
When you pull out a pushrod, you can roll it on a counter top ensuring it is not bent.
Check the rod ends making sure there are no cracks and the rod is hollow.

If you believe the rockers are adjusted correctly, for a hydraulic camshaft, if noise is still present, generally it is the lifter itself.

 

Don't take anything a part yet. Slight tapping in an GM motor is very common at higher miles. If you feel in may be causing the miss it will show up on a vacuum gage.

IMO here are the odds you up agains.

Chances that a valve "tick" on a stock engine is being caused by a push rod? Less then 1%

Chances miss is do to a valuve train issue even with a tick? Less then 1%

If it was my car I would assume the issues where NOT related, A vacuum gage can tell you for sure. The comon issue with the tick is dirt in the pump part of the lifter. Misses can be a lot of things but the most common issue is plugs and wires.

Step one on the miss: Make sure you plugs and wires and all filters are up to date interms of age

Step one on the tick: Is flush the motor using sea foam and after the flush use some mobil 1 or like oil with a quality oil filter. I would say I fix 50% of the ticks I see just doing that. Even a week after the process the tick my go away. Many people will get the tick only on cold morning and it goes away 3 minutes later. Yes you can relace the "ticking" lifter but your going to need to address the dirt that caused the issue to start with. Even if the flushing does not get the tick to stop it needs done before you replace the lifter.

 

Just under a year ago I bought new plugs, wires, fuel filter, seafoamed it, changed the oil and filter last week. Also switched the coils, wires and plugs to double check. My reader shows Cyl 1,2,3,5 and 8 missing randomly and cyl 4,6,7 have never had a miss in the history. I can barely feel the miss, although it does have a slight shake at idle and even worse at 3k rpm. But above 3k rpm it looks like it stops missing....

Maybe it's time to stop using my scanner and go straight back to square 1! Ill get it figured out soon enough... I just cant pay a mechanic to follow the same steps I did.

 

A driveablity tech should use a scope to find the miss. For him it should not be a guess. The scope should tell him if it is a lean miss or if it drops the spark or if the spark is not triggered. You really got to find a good mechainc with the right equipment. In the past I have over estimated how good some of the mechanic are at the local small shops.

Back when I did it one of the most common "hard" to find issues was things like cracked or defective plugs. It is very easy to crack a plug during install (I have done it without knowing)and I have seen cracks down inside the plugs that had to be done in manufacturing. Classic story, Car has miss, owner install plugs and wires, replaces injectors runs a compression test. Gives up and brings it to the dealer expecting a hugh bill, Cracked plug shows up on scope $70 in labor $3 for the plug. He had a bad wire that caused a miss to start then he cracked a plug missed so it seemed the miss never went away or it got "a little better".

I was going to say if it is a valve issue it would get worse at higher RPMs. The valve is open for much less time at the higher RPM so a valve not opening enough would more effect the higher the RPMs go. I have worked on cars that had most of the Cam lobe worn away and they idled fine (with a tick) but at 3500 RPM the car was shaking pretty bad.

 

start checking connectors and wires.

 

I am wondering about that cam lobe now that you mention it. Mine gets shaky at 3.5k rpm too but idles fine. Would a compression test pick that up??
Also doubting its the lifters or rods now that the tick seems to be loudest under the car as heard in the video below.
Maybe ill try a compression and leak down test before I hand it over to a shop. Just don't have the cash for a shop at the moment after my clutch install.
Here's a quick video of the tick. https://www.dropbox.com/s/h4e4p5zuvg...04.mp4?v=0rc-s

I have another thread that is merging into this same issue, I'd delete one of them but cant figure out how.