Yea.......about that..

 

I don't know whether a crower 229 meets that description but if it does I got lucky for once with OEM lifters.

That's an interesting idea about no muffler. I wouldn't be able to hear the tick!

 

I'm relatively sure that the 299 is a VERY similar cam to mine, so id say your good.

 

Charlie, what temperature does it do it at? Cold? Hot? Both? Louder under load, or does it disappear? Increase with RPM? Increase with RPM no load? With Load?

 

It seems louder at startup. But it persists hough out a drive cycle. It is much fainter than before, but still noticeable and apparently it is not going to go away on its own.

My daughter brought a commercial engine guy home today (I love it when she does that... Cnc operators are my favorite though) who works on engines the size of an entire Land Rover and I don't know how he did it, but after I cleverly diverted him from my wife and daughter's zone of control he convinced both of us that the tick was from the passenger side head. He said it was the rockers. He was sure. I nodded knowingly and then wondered what the heck could be wrong with the rockers. I let my dog jump on him, showed him my guns, subtley conveyed that I am a lawyer and would ruin his life if he upset my daughter, fed him, and we played cards (normal stuff) but I still don't know what the problem could be with rockers.

I can't show weakness in the face of daughter boyfriends. But I can here! What's he talking about?!

 

My best guess is that he may have thought they were out of adjustment. Most vehicles you can adjust the rockers. On our rovers you can not. That said, as easy as it is to swap a rocker assembly and with you having extra parts laying around, I would throw a different set on and see if it cures anything.

As someone in the current dating pool, I can conclusively say that the lawyer part is a million times scarier than the guns. As someone with a baby sister I care for very much and am very protective of, it's nice to hear you put him in his place a little. I enjoy toying with the boyfriends a little also.

 

How come you didn't post a video or sound bite of the noise? You aren't jacking with us trying to score even more sympathy points are you??
Put a clip up ASAP. While you are waiting for responses, you can pull spark plug wires until the noise stops on the dead cylinder. Starting from the top you can look at the rocker assembly, push-rod and spring. If nothing suspect, drop the oil pan and look the bearings over for that cylinder. If still nothing then swap tappet? ****, IDK. Just throwing some ideas out there but I can do some research for you when I get the sound bite. Would be nice if you got the file posted and narrowed down the cylinder first thing in the AM.

 

Maybe you didn't break-in your engine properly.

 

Hhahahhaha! Sympathy points! Now that's funny. No, no sympathy for the guy who drops a bolt in his engine! To be honest if my rover ever, for a minute, completely behaves I'll probably pass out and sustain injury in the fall.

Okay adjustable valves and rockers. That makes sense. My old, old, old mercedes diesel has that and he works on giant diesel engines (for gas compressor facilities). He also played with my spare piston and asked where the wrist pin "keeper" is. Since there is no keeper on our pistons I did get the idea that his engines were designed to be worked on in place.

Sadly, the bearings are new as of last weekend. I do have spare rocker assemblies, and the lifters are new insofar as they came out of the package just prior to the exploded piston. I do, embarrassingly, have another new set; and though I changed the heads and head gaskets a couple of weeks ago, I would do it again to check the lifters and get rid of the tick.

Now the plug wire idea. Why is it when I have a problem I can't think of these simple things?! I'll give that a shot.

I'm pretty sure the rings have set though I probably have 400 miles left of the 500 before the second oil change. It runs like a banshee. Very immediate and linear power. It makes compression and starts almost immediately when I turn the key.

I liked this guy. He was huge, had usable knowledge, refused to call me Charlie ("sir")... I could get some work out of him! So I want him to be right but Alex's comment about the adjustable rockers casts doubt on his future.

Video is forthcoming!

 

You can't adjust anything on the rocker assemblies BUT if you pull wire leads and the noise actually stops on one of the cylinders then you have found the one that has the problem. All of your parts are new BUT with all of these catastrophic accidents, you could have missed some shrapnel and there goes your engine again. But anyway, see if you can find the problematic cylinder so then you actually know where to look.