chevy venture lifters

[geh888]

Recently engine began to make ticking noise. Sounds like its coming from under valve cover. Mechanic removed valve cover and found one of the rocker arm assemblies loose but the bolt was tight. He feels it is a colapsed lifter. anyone know what the all data required time to fix is. Im told it is 12 hours.

[cdru]

Originally Posted by geh888

Recently engine began to make ticking noise. Sounds like its coming from under valve cover. Mechanic removed valve cover and found one of the rocker arm assemblies loose but the bolt was tight. He feels it is a colapsed lifter. anyone know what the all data required time to fix is. Im told it is 12 hours.

Time sounds about right. If you do need to replace a lifter you are looking at basically a intake gasket job. The upper manifold has to come off to remove the bracket that holds the lifters in. You are looking at $500-800 just for the intake manifold gasket portion of the job. The lifter will be extra but the labor for that should be minimal extra since they are right there.

Is it a loud tick or just a "regular" tick? The lifters GM uses in the 3400 engine (well...just about all their engines) usually start to develop a tick later in their life. There isn't any reason to be concerned and damage isn't going to happen if it is just a noisy lifter. It's just something to live with.

[geh888]

Ticking is pretty loud. Don't feel comfortable driving the vehicle with this tick. Its going to cost me $1200 with all Appropriate gaskets. It was time to replace gaskets anyway. Was loosing coolant prior to this problem, just procrastinating the inevitable. Thanks for the feedback

[cdru]

Originally Posted by geh888

Ticking is pretty loud. Don't feel comfortable driving the vehicle with this tick. Its going to cost me $1200 with all Appropriate gaskets. It was time to replace gaskets anyway. Was loosing coolant prior to this problem, just procrastinating the inevitable. Thanks for the feedback

If it was leaking already, then go ahead and do it. However I'd do a little shopping around. The average GM dealer charges around $800 for the intake gasket and associated gaskets. An extra $400 seems a little high. Lifters are only about $20 a pop and just drop in place.

[geh888]

Unfortunatly the car is at the mechanics already getting the work done. Looks like I'll have to eat this one. Would have attempted the job myself but the 25 degree weather put a kabosh on that. Thanks for the post.

[geh888]

Adding insult to injury got my van back 11 days later. Before I left the mechanics shop got the service engine light. Mechanic came out reset computer and I left, on way home light came on again. Called immediatly upon arrival at the house, recording. Over the course of christmas weekend van progressivly ran worse. Now very hesitant from idle through acceleration. Seems like engine is misfiring. Van back at shop on tuesday

[skiboyne]

I hate to be the one to bring this up, but I have had many problems with the 3400 engine. They have lifter and pushrod problems that seem to be impossible to fix. If your engine was already leaking from the intake, and the lifters were noisy, now the engine is running rough I think your about due for a new engine. Check the antifreeze overflow tank to see if it appears any oil is mixing with the antifreeze. If it is don't spend any more money on that engine, just look for a used one. Also the pushrods are cylinder sensitive on that engine, meaning that if the mechanic put the #3 pushrod where the #6 was befor or anything like that, it will run like shit.....The bad part is you will never know if thats the case unless you tear your engine back down and measure the push rods. So it's not even worth it. Find a good used part and start fresh.