1999 tahoe v8 with 95,000 miles. Lifters are noisy at start up for about 5 minutes. Do you think it can be adjusted out of it, or will more expensive repairs be required?
No I don’t think a manual adjustment will help as hydraulic lifters have a form of self adjustment by design. I don’t like to carry over to today what was common 30+ years ago, but, we mechanics used to say Chevrolet small blocks had “Macdonalds cams” as many of them ended up “ground round”.
Google " noisy lifters ATF ". The recommendation is to add a Qt of ATF to the oil about 500 miles before an oil change. The idea is ATF has a high detergent level and will clean out the oil passages so the lifters will pump up more quickly. ANYWAY, I used it on a 3.2L Isuzu engine and it helped. Did absolutely cure it, but helped.
The ATF idea does work…Or at your next oil change…replace a quart of oil with a quart of Rislone. It works GREAT.
I failed to mention that I did use some Rislone last year and it seemed to help. But this year the noise is back and seems louder. I was hoping for an inexpensive fix, but the cam situation sounds logical. Great vehicle and I want to run it for another 100,000 miles. Anyway, thanks for the input.
Try adding a can of SeaFoam or Berryman B-12 carburetor cleaner to the engine oil and see if this clears it up.
Those products have a very good cutting action to them. They may do a better job of clearing up any gunk condition that may be responsible for this problem.
SeaFoam has taken a drastic price jump upwards lately but Berryman is still pretty cheap.