The initial post says it was purchased with 42K miles. Now it has 110K. What if it was neglected for 42K? What is the service history?
The factory lifters are not crap. There are millions out there with NO Problems. Your problem sounds like a cam bearing problem to me. Most likely caused by lack of oil change and poor oil quality.
Does GM have some problems, Yes. I have been here for 20+ years. But think about the amount of vehicles produced. Trucks, SUV's, Mid Size, etc, that all us the same lifters. It is in the millions. If you read a few posts about guys who have noisy lifters it is not the end of the world. Mostly exaggerated.

 

Sounds just like what the dealer is trained to tell the customer..... I agree tho GM vehicals are the best out there, and most the time a little lifter noise, or piston slap never hurts anything. I've seen many "tickers" make it well past 300K.

 

Then it must be from GM because both these motor were never touched.

We run a fleet of 50 Gm pickups and two of them have had this problem.
Are shop mechanic drops the pan and installs a New o-ring on the pickup tube and all is fine when finished. The o-rings are getting hard and not sealing. The replacement o-ring is orange now not brown like the factory one he removed.

By the way All the motors had low Idle oil pressure. Not sure How low but they sure rattled when they idled.

Not sure on the milliage one was 80k other 110k or around that area.

 

Are you sure it is not a header leak. I have heard header leaks that you would swear was a lifter.

Jeff

 

OK, so I'm in the market for lifters for my build... which ones will last with moderate lift (.585") and 1.8 ratio? Are LS7 lifters the ones to get? Will I need shorter pushrods if I get those vs. stock LM7 lifters? Any other recommends? I can't seem to get any solid recommends for this.

 

Hey if you do need shorter push rods I have a nearly new set of 7.350 if they will work FS.

 

Actually, mine only failed because my cam was apparently defective and ate up the lifters.

Mine had never been opened before I bought it. Maybe they started using the LS7 lifters in 2003 6.0s? Not sure if your 5.3 already has them.

Also, GM redesigned the pickup tube and Oring half way through the Gen3s so it was certainly a known issue.

 

there was no LS7 in 2003 though... but the good new is i achieved 70psi at 5k rpm with the engine hot. i don't mean hot as in the water is at 210F, i mean i drove on the highway at 70mph for 30 min before checking so the oil is full temp too. i know it's not the header ticking. there is no carbon trace on the head and the tick was there before headers, just much quieter. FWIW i use Mobil1 5-30 and this time NAPA gold filter (wix), someone asked earlier.

guess my engine would be on the back half of the gen III. gen IV was introduced '05 right?

 

M1 5-30 in the winter and 10-30 in the summer

 

The Gen IV ‘s did make their appearance in 2005, however the full-size truck line retained the Gen III configuration engines throughout the 2007 Classic’s, while the Gen IV engine family finally made it into the full-size trucks with the release of the GMT-900 series in 2007.

Due to the commonality of the two, I’m sure lifters as well as most components were shared between the two engine designations. One such item that stands out is the use of a Gen IV camshaft timing gear with the reluctor, yet as installed in the Gen III’s they didn’t serve any purpose, besides being cheaper to build one piece that could be used in more than one application.