Hi all,

I just got a new-to-me Vanagon a couple weeks ago, and it's great fun.  It
needs some tune-up type things, and a few various and sundry parts that are
inexplicably missing (rear seat belts?), but it does have one problem...

The lifters are LOUD.  They were not loud at first, but it's been sitting a
few months, and after a day or two of driving around, they have become
SERIOUSLY loud.  They get a little quieter at speed, or maybe the engine
just gets loud enough to cover up the noise, but they really clack at idle.
I am going to undertake some of the various methods to make them quieter
this week, but I have one question:

Will it ruin the engine for me to drive around like this?

I really do not want to ruin the engine.  But I do want to drive the car, as
my '69 has now shot a bearing in the generator (again!) and I will have to
extract it this week.  It is also exceptionally loud.

My new phrase is "If it's not one bus, it's the other..."

Thanks,

Blake Sartin
Moderator, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bus-life
All Fridays, All The Time. No Tech Talk!
'69 Westfalia
'84 Vanagon
Athens, GA