i have a 97 ss, 60,000 original miles. the car is bone stock. it has resently been making a slight taping noise, coming from the driver side valve cover. i herd it can be the egr valve, if sso how can i test if it is? i also have been told it can be lifters or valves. i have also herd that the lt1 motors sometimes have noisy injecters also. can anyone help? thanks.

 

If it's the EGR it shouldn't sound like it's coming from the driver side valve cover, it would be coming from the back passenger side of the intake manifold, or the back of the passenger side exhaust manifold depending oh whether it's actually the EGR valve or the EGR feed leaking. If it's actually coming from the driver side valve cover it could be many things. You could have a noisy lifter or a rocker could be tapping against the top of the valve cover. I would take off the valve covers and see if there's any wear from a rocker arm rubbing against it. If it's a noisy lifter you may have to live with it, but with only 60,000 miles it seems a bit early to have lifters ticking. As far as the noisy injectors, they sit on the intake manifold above the valve covers, but if you haven't done any sort of tune up in a while it you should run some injector cleaner through it, it can only help.

 

thanks. if it is a lifter how would i go about fixing it?

 

It could be a leaky exhaust manifold gasket, check the bolts too. Or could also be a leaking donut between the exhaust manifold and header pipe. I've had both, and a lot of times if it's the donut, it leaks more when the engine is cold, and less or none at all after it heats up and expands.

 

thats what i was thinking also. im going to check the bolts in the morning.i allready checked the egr valve and that wasnt it,if thats not it im going to take off the valve cover and se if its a noisy lifter.

 

To check the lifter then you'll have to pull off the intake.

 

you have to pull the valve covers off not the intake to check the lifters

 

Most likely, a lifter/rocker is loose.... it happened to my '70, whoever rebuilt the engine before didn't put lock-nuts on the rockers so they all came loose and WOW what a disaster... when i pulled the valve cover off there were lifters in half, none of the rockers were where the should be.... a disaster... well i got it rebuilt and as soon as i heard the ticking again took it to the shop and yup 2 loose rockers, solution, new lock nuts... so yea check those asap... and don't give it alot of drive time if its tickin cause it will make the nuts come even more loose...

 

Um, guys, this thread is from last October...[&o]

 

[&:]OOOOOOOOOOOOH crap...... lol