Lifters tapping 3.3 liter

1992 Century 3.3 Liter 113,000 miles
Regular oil changes 3000 miles 10W-30

I have lifters tapping upon starting the engine. It doesn’t happen every time. In the past I have used Marvel Mystery Oil to fix the problems on other engines. Is it risky to do this with a high mileage engine? Should I us synthetic oil? Any help is appreciated.

Man I own a 90 buick century w/3300 and it has 180,532 miles on it. I bought it about 30 thousand miles ago and every since the day I bought it the lifters have constantly rattled tapped or whatever you wanna call it. I'm like you, keeping it's oil changed every 3,000 and all that happy shit.
And I finally figured out the problem, it was probably pampered TOO MUCH! you know I bought it from a old lady that owned it from day 1 and she probably never floored it. I started running the shit outta it and it stopped tapping. I started taking it easy on it again, and wadda you know, it came back, so I asked about 5 or 6 mechanics about it and they all say that the hydrolic lifters are probably getting clogged up with trash and me running it to death probably just broke whatever it was aloose. Your car is just now starting to break in at 113,000 miles. I've seen these cars got to 300,000 miles and still run strong as hell. That engine LOVES hard earned miles. If you don't wanna run it to hell and back tho, just replace the lifters and wait till it starts tapping again, and then remember what I told you. GL man

Thanks man,
I feel like this 3.3 is one of the best motors made by US manufactures. It does not use oil or drip oil like all my other cars.. It climbs steep hills like a kitty cat.

I was running it kinda hard the other day and the TCC solenoid acted weird, tranny coughed up. So backed down a bit. I might disconnect the TCC solenoid.

It's a decent motor but it will never be near the old iron block off-balance 4.3L V6 chevrolet put in their 1st generation S10's now that is a true work of art. Oh yeah if you truely love your a-body, I know of a web site that you might want to sign up to, right now it's still kinda small but it's growing every day, I still haven't found anyone on there that isn't helpful. http://www.a-body.net registration is free and they like any kind of a-body cars the 82-96 Olds ceira, pontiac 6000, Chevy Celebrity, and of course the Buick Century. please spread the word about this site and PM me either on here or on there I'm under the same name on both sites. GL again man. Hope to hear from you.

I know the feeling - my 1990 Century w/ the 3300 V6 has only 29K miles. After I returned toe car to daily driver service and "blew the soot" out of the car much of that ticking stopped.

Thats normal for out Centurys from what I know. Mine use to tap everytime I start up for about 10 secs if the engine was cold, 4 if the engine was warm. I changed the oil and used 10w30 and some STP Oil treatment in and that helped, the next time I used 10w40 and haven't heard a tap since, that was 2 oil changes ago. Try switching to 10w40 and after a while it may go away. I use Valvoline Max Life, its like $2.12 a quart at walmart.

Thanks Jaice
Never thought about using 10W-40

Another thing you can do. When you change your oil next time add a quart of transmision fluid and subtract a quart of oil of course, then drive you car for a couple hundred miles and change the oil again. You'll be amased what transmision fluid can clean out! I did this with a car of mine and it stopped making the ticking sound.