I have a 98 chevrolet k1500/ 4wd/ 350 vortek/ newly rebuilt (main bearings) Upon completion of the rebuild, the truck started up great at first but then brought up a code for a cyl. 3 misfire. I immediately suspected that the old gas in the tank may have plugged sumthin up(dumb me for running the old gas through it), so I added a bottle of seafoam and dilluted the little amount of old gas in the tank with about 10 gallons new. Anyways, the motor has developed a ticking noise coming from the top of motor. I am frustrated now beyond belief, beings as I don't know enough to do this myself. Any advice where to start?

 

The ticking noise is most likely lifter or tappet noise and that would be becasue they run hydraulic liffters wich means if you have insufficiant oil pressure it can not automatically adjust and then there will be slack in the valve train between either the cam and lifter or the lifter and push rod. This can come from inproper instalation of the lifter or no oil pressure and or clogged oil port to that lifter wich is bad meaning there will be little to no oil making its way up thru the push rod to the rockers resulting and premature wear of valve train components. Now if the noise goes away after a couple of minutes after starting that can be expected of older motors with high miles and is ok, not great but ok means after a while the oil is getting there but if the noise always is there than there is a problem. Otherwise what could be is an injector pulse your hearing but usually is not loud enough to hear unless your hood is up and would sound like tss tss tss not a knock wich would be more of a lifter noise wich would be more metalic sounding.

 

o.k, now from here what should i do to start checking off possible problems. Do you think my best bet is taking it to a factory authorized dealer and just getting it done "right"?

 

Yes that is exactly what you should do.

 

the ticking is a mis adjusted rocker arm witch will give you a misfire also a stuck ring since the engine was just rebuilt