I have been noticing a very noisy valvetrain lately. Mainly on the drivers side of the engine. Its been like that since the heads cam install 50K miles ago. Just noisy springs.

But over the last few weeks, its been getting worse, randomly. At first, it was slight enough to make me think it was an exhaust leak, looked, found the manifold gasket blown, changed it, and the sound changed...didn't totally go away, but it was less intense. Well its gotten to the point where I am not comfortable driving the thing, so I pulled the valve cover and this is what I see...no oil squirting over the rockers / springs / etc. I ran the RPMs way up, oil pressure goes to about ~60 psi, still no oil coming out. WTF

Anyone have any ideas? Oil pressure is normal, 2000 miles on the oil. Checked the oil, level is good, still looks relatively new.

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***UPDATE***

10 minutes later, after posting the above, I restarted the truck, just to let it run for a minute. Slowly, very slowly, oil started to trickle from the individual holes on the rockers. It took a solid three minutes of running before all rockers were lubricated. I guess that explains the shavings on the oil plug magnet. Is that normal? Just a slow weep of oil? I was expecting / hoping to see oil shooting out with some force (about the same PSI that the gauge reads - 37-40psi at idle). Whats the story here? anyone have any ideas?

 

lifters? it's weird that all of them would go at once though. nvm didnt read your update.

 

I don't think that can be it. Im not ruling it out by any means, but thats a pretty big coincidence. Am I right in thinking that the oil should be coming out with more force?