We were setting off early doors on New Years Day, to go to 'Vintage Stony' at Stony Stratford near Milton Keynes but almost as soon as we'd started the car, a noticeable ticking noise was heard, similar to what we had back in 2019 (see page 24 of this thread).
So once we'd determined the noise wasn't going away, and was probably a reoccurrence of what we’d had before, we parked the car and there it sat until a few weeks ago
So, no biggie, just remove the valve covers to check which pushrod had come adrift, make sure there's no damage... until we actually couldn’t remove the driver-side cover as the gasket sealant was doing too good a job
We managed to get the pass-side off with a bit less of a struggle and found that No2 inlet pushrod was jammed up under the rocker, beside where it should have been, pretty much the same as last time, except then it was No3 exhaust.
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In removing the pushrod we managed to drop it down the hole so now we needed to remove the inlet too! At least with that off we could get another angle of attack on the other valve cover
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Something we did notice with the valve covers off, the edge of the gasket, adjacent to the pushrods, had semi-circular cut-outs in line with the pushrods. Martin assures us these weren’t there when he fitted them, so we’re wondering if the pushrods have come into contact with the edge of the gasket and if so, would that would be enough to knock the pushrod out of whack? Either way, No 2 pushrods aren’t as close to the gasket edge as the gasket’s not as wide in this area, so the jury's still out on that one
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The cork gaskets we’ve now fitted looked a lot narrower in that area; I'm hoping that's not just because they hadn't been compressed when photographed
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With the help of our friendly local MMA expert, Ian Mitchel (again)l, we checked and adjusted the preload on all lifters and set them to about 40 thou – ¾ turn of the adjuster.
So what should have taken a couple of hours to sort, ended up taking a few weeks cos in trying to get the driver-side valve cover off, we inadvertently managed to dent it – it was stuck that hard! And once off, the mounting flange wasn’t as flat as it previously was so once again we called upon the help of another expert to fix the damage – JC
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Once JC had worked his magic, back on with a new valley pan gasket, freshly painted to match the fixed and repainted valve covers. We chose a sealant that’s non-setting (Loctite 5922 if anyone’s interested ), praying it would seal as well as the Wurth one Martin used, but knowing we’ll most likely have to remove them again in the not too distant future
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Once it was all back together, it started after a couple of attempts, then after a few minutes running, any louder-than-hoped-for top-end noise settled down and idled nicely with no noticeable oil, water or fuel leaks.
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Not taken it out yet but weather permitting, there’s a couple of local shows/meets on next weekend that we’ll hopefully get to this time
) that 40 thou was half the lifter's travel 
