A few of my friend's mechanic dad's have been telling me I need new valve stem seals. I'm guessing this is what is causing some oil burning on start-up.

Would bad seals also cause a clicking sound at idle? It goes away if I lower or raise the RPMS from idle. the nosie tends to happen in the 700-650 RPM range. I lower th RPMs by turning the A/C on, which seems to do enough to stop the clicking. It sounds like it's coming from the engine, not soemthing like the alternator, ac, water pump etc.

If my oil guage is right.... the oil pressure is a bit high when I start it up. It starts at 50 PSI and might go up to 55 PSI, and after abnout 10-20 minutes it will go down to 30 PSI and stay there until the next morning. That includes sitting in a parking lot or my garage for most of the day. I don't know if the oil pressure is related to any of this. I'm just starting to worry that I'm going to blow soemthing. I'm overdue for something bad to happen.

 

Factory valve stem seals are a well-known weakness of small block Chevys. Especially with petroleum oil, they harden and crack. It doesn't help any that another weak spot in SBCs is the valve guides, which wear a little and let even more oil down the stems when the seals quit sealing.

The clicking sound is probably completely unrelated. Give us some more details about the year, model, and engine your car has (induction type especially, such as carb, TPI, TBI, etc.).

It could be dirty lifters, though.

Your oil pressure sounds normal.

 

It's a '90 305 TBI, code L03. There are 292,xxx miles on it, and from what I can tell, no major engine work has been performed (which scares me more)

 

Ok, with the help of several listening ears, it could be a sticky lifter.

Now I just hope that the valve stem seals ren't a major issue until I have a good week to work on them (I'm basically a weekend wrench turner)

 

I don't know if this could be related or not, but I had a spark plug that sure looked funny in an unknown cylinder. I have the plugs layed out in order, I just need to go out int he garage and look at which one it was.

Now for a good question, should I be very very concerned about this problem, or can it wait until I get the cash for a valve job? Getting the cash might take me a while.. and i'm talking months and maybe into next year LOL

 

could be spark leaking from a plug wire, noise from an injector, lifter, exhaust leak