Question : Post LIM Replacement Issues, what'd I mess up

[locovaca]

I'm more or less an adventurous novice at cars, willing to work and learn, but don't have years of knowledge. I finished up on a LIM job on my 98 Venture 3.4 a few weeks ago.

I'm not sure if the rocker arms/etc. are being oiled. The engine does tick, but it's not loud enough to hear inside the vehicle. Trying to isolate the noise hasn't netted anything so far, so I'm not terribly concerned about it. However, when I idle the engine and pull the filler cap I don't see any oil moving at all. Springs don't have a fresh coating on them, if the oil is moving in the pool below I'm having a hard time seeing it. Get a fair amount of exhaust coming out too.

I compared it to my wife's 3.1 Malibu and hers was about the same, just as noisy and just as little oil flow, so perhaps I'm being paranoid, but a little confirmation would be nice. I hate to have to pull the valve covers, but if that's what it takes, that's what it takes.

From what I've read on here, it sounds like I should definitely see oil moving around, right? My next step is to just take off the front cover and see if I can get oil to splash out, right? I've put about 150 miles on the engine since the replacement, so I don't know if that helps confirm anything being ok or not.

[Rootie524]

well i can tell you from experience and what other people are saying these are very noise engines. lots of ticks and nothing to worry about. normally it goes away when the engine warms up. if you can't hear it in the car it's not piston slap or anything..just normal GM ticks. as for the oil..i just put in a comp cam so i had everything ripped apart to the heads. i put it all back together and looking in the valve cover cap i didnt see any oil moving either if that makes you feel any better. it just had the pool of oil around the springs. If you are really concerned just take the covers off and check it out. all you have to do is remove the coolant pipe in front of the valve cover..shouldnt take more than a couple of minutes for some piece of mind. I'd say all is well and normal though. i know when my cars running and i open the cap i see alittle gases come out..so everything seems to be in order.

and by LIM job you mean that gaskets? because when i did mine i was like holy crap..good thing i changed the cam because my LIM gasket was about to go on the passenger side coolant tunnels. there must of been dexcool in my engine at some point during its 8 years of life.

[pocket-rocket]

I would go ahead and pull the cover off and scope it out. It can't hurt, and like Rootie said it can give you some piece of mind. The last 3400 I had on the engine stand got up to ~65 psi of pressure with my drill driving the oil pump and oil didn't shoot out of the pushrods/rockers, it just kinda trickled out and made pools around the springs. That engine has been running fine for the last year and a quarter and runs better after that last bout with it than it has since they have owned the van.

[Rhedalert]

I'll vouch for this condition. I just ran my engine with the valve cover off to find a noisy lifter and the rockers do NOT get splashed with oil like you may expect. It does eventually come up though.