I used to own a 85 camaro 2.8, i sold it to a friend in december, it has recently started tapping and i sold him my 89 camaro. He offered it back to me for $250, i want to know what the tapping is. it is only when the motor is slowing down, no tapping when reved up, only when its slowing down. Is it a rod? i head rods knock at all rpms....if yall can help me with what could be wrong i might buy it back

 

Sounds like lifter tick... or perhaps loose rocker arms? Have to hear it to really guess...

 

if it helps any, it also does it at idle too

 

if what you say is indeed a 'tick' then it could be a bad lifter, loose rocker arm, or sticky injector (my latest problem).

None are terribly hard to fix.

 

i have no knowledge of how to fix it, unless its dirty injectors or loose rocker arm, but what are the chances its one of those things and not the motor needing to be rebuilt, its got 186K miles and never had a tune up till 183K

 

if it's a light to medium "tick" then just like posted above, you've got something in the valvetrain going bad there. If you have a heavy "CLUNK" with the engine, you probably have a bad connecting rod/piston/bearing somewhere in there, and that means rebuild time. However you said it's not noticeable during higher RPM's, so I'm going to rule that one out. That's one loooooong time to do without a tuneup. What all was done on it when it was finally tuned? Has it ever had the timing chain replaced? I would recommend that soon if it hasn't. As for the lifters, they require removal of the intake manifold to replace. Once the manifold is off and the rocker arms are loosened, pull the pushrod out, and remove the lifter (it slides right out). Since you are there, I would recommend changing all of them. It would be a shame to replace one, and then have to tear it all apart after a few months to change another. Before I forget, keep all the valvetrain components to their respective places, don't mix and match them when reinstalling.

 

Might also be a snapped bolt on the exhaust manifold. All the ones I've come across have been super-easy to remove with vise grips, as long as the manifold is removed so you can get a grip on the bolt. I think the heads just snap due to cooling/heating expansion, and it's not that the threads rust into the head. Coat a new bolt's threads with anti-sieze to make future removal/replacement easier.