What I find worse than the engines sitting is when they are started and ran
for short periods such as changing a parking spot. Usually this is nothing
to worry about. You should check the valve adjustment. There are some that
set up the lifters with no preload or some actual lash, (play). Last year I
had 3 engines that were set this way were one of the lifter plunger beat out
the snap ring and jam up leaving the pieces in the engine.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
John Goubeaux
Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2013 12:08 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Noisy Valve lifters

Howdy Folks,

I've  got a 2.2 GoWesty engine that has roughly 6K miles on it. It's running
fine -but because I am not driving it a lot, it can sit for a week or more
before I fire it up and drive it, the valve lifters have clacked on several
occasions while the engine is cold. After several miles and higher RPMs the
noise eventually goes away. I've seen this on older Waterboxer engines I
have had ( with lots of miles on them), BUT the question is: Is this
something to worry about at all given it's a new engine OR b/c it often sits
for longer periods IS this normal ?

-john