First engine project yay!

[ilikebass]

Hey guys, Im replacing the valve cover gasket on my '85 turbo, and I wanted to ask a few questions. First, there is a clicky noise at idle, and im pretty sure its a lifter. With the valve cover off, I might as well fix it. But... I dont know how I would find wich one is bad, and how many if more than one. This is indeed my first engine project, and I dont know if it would really be worth it to go through all that. How important is it to change a bad lifter on a 215k engine? Will it create more problems down the road, and will I need a new vcgasket if I decide to replace a lifter down the road? If it is worth it, I will ad a lifter to my order from autohausaz.com. Thanks for any replys. And yes I am am a novice, but I think Im competent enough to tackle a lifter if I need to. I dont know what you all think, let me know though. haha thanks!

P.S. is there a pcv on my car??

[Matthew]

Definitely replace the lifter if it's faulty.

You could use a mechanic's stethoscope to find out which lifter is faulty, or at least narrow the search down to a few. Or you do the squish test - try to lever the lifter down with a padded screwdriver. You'll know which lifter's bad because it'll compress without opening the valve, and will feel differently to the others.

Personally I'd just grab a full set of lifters from a scrapyard and use one of those. You could store the rest in an oil bath. Cheap and easy.

You don't need to replace the camcover gasket every time you remove the cover, providing the gasket's in good condition and isn't leaking. They're reusable.

[ilikebass]

thanks for the info, I will see what I can do about getting some lifters. New ones are about 18 bucks, so used is definately the way to go... I guess I can fix the leak and go back to the lifters later. Thanks