My engine is making a tapping sound from the top end. It has quite a few thousand miles on it. It sounds like lifters to me? Would anyone have any other ideas about what this might be?

 

Sounds like sticly lifters or badly adjusted rocker arms. To check if the lifters are bad, I would run the car for a couple hundred miles with 2 quarts of ATF in it. You drain out 2 quarts of oil and dump the 2 quarts of ATF in it. ATF acts like a detergent. Try that first.

 

yeah definately sounds like lifters, i've never heard of the atf thing...... i don't think i would try that

there are other additives that are supposed to free up sticky lifters, mystery oil is one of them and it works pretty well

you might want to try and readjust the rocker arms, usually tapping happens when one of the nuts gets loosened a little

 

Valve lash.

 

As long as you have mostly oil, dumping a quart or two of ATF and running for a couple hundred miles will be fine. What do you think most of the other lifter cleaners are?