My camaro is almost road worthy again.. but when she's running, I hear this sort of ticking sound coming from under the hood. The previous owner had told me it was a blown header gasket, and some Googling tells me that could be the problem. I was more concerned about it being something to do with the valvetrain, since I can't really trust anything the previous owner did.

I pulled the valve covers off today looking for anything that looked out of the ordinary or broken, and everything seemed fine, actually everything looked brand new (so maybe the previous owner wasn't lying when he told me it had 10k miles on it).

Anyway, can you guys tell me what I should be looking for? I'd also like to make any necessary adjustments, since, like I said, I can't really trust the previous owner's work. I'd like to make sure everythings in order before I start driving her around again.

Any information that you guys can give me about how to check the valvetrain would be great. I have a good understanding of how everything works, I have just never actually done any work on that part of the engine.

I know this is probably all a stupid question, but it just makes it all the easier to answer! :)

Oh, and I have no problem reading up on the topic on the web, I just couldn't seem to find anything.. probably because I wasn't exactly sure what to Google. "Valves" turned up too many results, so you get the idea!

Thanks

--Jimmy

A valve tap and a header gasket leak will sound almost identical..... with one exception. When you put the engine under load (accelerating away from a stop) the tapping from an exhaust leak will get louder- a valve tap won't.

Damon, has the right idea for you to go on. If it is a misadjusted valve then you can usually pull off the cover and make out which one it is with the engine running. Be careful and put down rags since oil will be a flowing and you don't want to get any on you or anywhere else. If it's a hydraulic cam it might be as simple as a slight twist on the rocker nut for preload. If it's solid then your going to have to lash it. Check out this page on how to set valves

http://www.small-block-chevy.com/cams.htm