UPDATE: I went to the dealership today for a diagnosis and they came to the conclusion that it is in fact a "dead" lifter. From start up until you shut the car off it ticks. It does not matter if you are at temp or not.

I am way out of warranty and they quoted me $825 dollars to replace one lifter if they can single out the bad one.

It never once ticked before, and all the sudden started yesterday. I have driven the car close to one hundred miles since my oil change this morning and it has not changed. I had to run many errons today.

Im thinking, I will be taking the car in right after Christmas to have the work done. I just really do not want to drive around such a nice car with that loud of a tick. It is incredibly loud, the film does not do justice. I also did a search through the forum and came upon a video of another ls4 (impala ss) with a dead lifter and the sound was identical.

I would also like to thank everyone of you for the reply and concern on my scenario. If I could I would personally thank all of you.

 

Well that's unfortunate. Sorry to hear it's actually dead...

 

AlabamaGuy, Do you know how hard it would be to personally replace the lifters in a LS4. My father is has been a mechanic for 30+ years and feels he could do it. Not that I don't trust him, but what all would have to be done, any potential major complications.

My dealer in Midland quite potentially employs the most uneducated techs I have ever met.

 

you buy the lifters and pay me a little bit of cash and ill do it, with me and my business partner we can do it in a day. trying to get my side business off the ground. pole barn is up and will be paved this spring with a lift. lifters are cake work. let me know, im only 25 minutes down the road.

 

I had a dead lifter cylinder #4 and it threw a missfire code. I had to pull my heads off to replace the lifter and it was easy. I could have the lifters replaced in a day or two taking my time. I had both heads off of my engine in about 5 HRs. Cleaning the deck surfaces and cleaning out the head bolt holes was the hardest part. Draining the cooling system sucks too. The radiator pedcock is really hard to get to cause of the lower radiator hose. You'll need a head gasket, dod lifter, head bolt kit for one side. Dextron coolant, oil filter and 6 quarts of oil. I sucked all of the water out of my engine with a shop vac so I kept my old oil in the crankcase and drained it after I got it back up and running. You'll need to get some arp bolt hole chasers or grind 3 slots in a stock head bolt in order to clean out your bolt holes. I also used a baby bottle brush with some Carb cleaner. Once the holes were cleaned I used compressed air with brake clean. Make sure the holes have no water or crap in them or else you will crack the block. You'll also need and angle tq wrench to tq the head bolts down with. I didn't use one but I have one now. I just drew a horizontal line across each head bolt and used the line as a reference. Its not a hard job at all and the ls4 is actually quit easy to work on. Much easier then the f cars. The only bitch as job if had to do was the belt tensioner! I could do it now with quickness.

 

I replaced all of my lifters and ran 2qts of trans fluid threw my engine for a week. Drained the oil and replaced the filter. I run 0-30 mobile 1 synthetic oil in the winter and 5-30 in the summer. Parts listed above shouldn't cost you more then 200.00 shipped

 

Thank you very much to the last two who posted above me, very informative. I have stopped driving the car since it began making the noise. I do not want to harm anything. Even if it shouldn't I do not want to take a risk. Now driving the trusty ol' Aztek!

Now I am very nervous about the lifter being replaced. With the heads coming off etc, we are getting quite far into the engine. It is coming from the rear bank and I do not want to be in the engine doing the lifters again so I am trying to decide rather to replace all the lifters all around and spend some serious money.... or just do the back 8.....2 in each cylinder obviously. I do not know how you tell which lifter is bad, just by looking at it.

What would make the lifter just fail all the sudden, never make a noise before and just one day be loud. I just drove home after filling the car up. Shut it off, went to leave about 2 hours later and it sounds like a ticking time bomb.

Hooked the scanner up to it and everything passes a okay.

 

Well I would just replace the bad lifters. The rear head will be off so just check all of the dod lifters and replace as necessary. I'm not to sure why your lifters collapsed if that is in deed What happened. My collapsed lifter was self inflicted. Keep it simple and replace what's wrong. GM is aware of the noisy lifters and has come up with better versions back in August, I believe. There are two versions of the dod lifters. The Eaton and Delphi. Both will work. I'm using the Eaton's right now and they are very noisy compared to my original Delphi lifters. There are also two versions of the dod valley trays. One is slimer then the other. GM is cheap so I think they took over for Eaton. I would just use What ever p/n lifters your dealership lists. Go trough gmpartsgiant.com for your part needs. Super cheap. Goodluck and keep it simple. I've got tons of low mileage dod lifters cause I bought a bunch cheap from the guys who have done cam swaps. No need to pull both heads just fix what's broke.

 

Trust me pulling the heads off is easy. No need to pull your front cover just remove the intake manifold, rear manifold bolts alternator/bracket, valve cover, Rover arms, push rods and head bolts. Too easy man. Just make sure you drain the water before pulling the head LOL. Get a bunch of ziplock bags and keep everything together. Put the intake bolts back on the intake alt bracket bolts back into the bracket. Get a couple of cans of Carb and brake clean and go to town. Soak lifters in fresh engine oil over night before re assembly.

 

how common is this problem with a dead lifter?

 

Nothing to really worry about. Its like prostate cancer or a ruptured apendex.

 

thanks for the help just wanted to see if it is like our trans issues

 

Does anyone have the part number to the "new" quieter lifters from GM. I would like to put them in my car if I am replacing the lifters in the rear bank.


Also, I would rather replace just the bad lifter and leave the others alone, although if one went out. Do you think they will all began going out one by one.

How do you test a DOD lifter to be functional or not.

 

Just use whatever lifter GM has listed for your application. If your lifter is bad then it will be collapsed/Compressed. These engines make noise it the nature of the beast. Ohv engine trait.