My motor sounds like a popcorn popper, ticking noise!!

[gibbo69olds]

OK, so I replaced my head gaskets and nothing else. Put everything back together again and the tick I had is now louder and I have another. Please tell me someone has a quick and easy fix for this. I want to have my car in my wedding pictures this Saturday.

[mr-tom]

cracked exhaust maniford

[texasred]

Maybe just a bad/crusty/rusty mating surface on the exhaust manifold or head or bad donut seal. Did you have any head work done or just off and on?

I'd remove the exhaust manifold and wire brush the head and manifold where they mate and at the exhaust pipe. You can look for cracks then, too.

C.J.

[gibbo69olds]

Can't be manifold, I have headers on the car that are probably only a few years old. I did clean everything when it was off. Wire brushed everything. I do have one pain in the butt header bolt to get in. could explain the ticking on that side but the other is bolted up and tightened down. My feelings are that it is not exhaust but in the valve train.

[texasred]

HEADERS! well....I'm not going to say it's NOT the valvetrain....but I'd putting my money on the headers.

I've chased header leaks for years. Header flanges are rarely square. A couple of years ago was told to try skimcoating the header side of the gasket with RTV. Just plain old RTV....doesn't even have to be high temp. Then retrque the next day, drive it, and retorque it. No leaks in over two years!

Use the old "screwdriver to the ear" trick to see if you can locate the noise...be it header leak or valvetrain.

C.J.

[gibbo69olds]

I actually don't think this is what it is. Last night thinking about it more I replaced my head gasket with one that is thicker. Now I think the pushrods are not the right length any more and they are ticking.

[442Harv]

If this was a orignal motor never had the heads off before, when you replaced the heads, the gaskets they sell today are thicker. If your rockers were fairly wore before, when you did this, it probley made perload to loose. Take a valve cover of and check the pivots, and rockers for wear. Take a thin fealer gage and trye to slip it between the rocker and valve stem, while the car is running, and if you can get a small one in between, and the noise goes away, you will know that is the problem. You do not want to run the car to long, as it will make a oil mess.