I'm hearing a "ticking" noise from my engine that sounds like the lifter/valve noise that older cars make. I cannot hear it below 2000 rpm or when I wear my full-faced helmet. My bike's a 2016 Road King with 7000 miles. Should I be concerned? Some guys say that Harleys are just noisy. Because I cannot hear it at idle the dealer service guy said that it must not be too severe. Advice?

 

 

Lifters are using louder at idle and noise just get faster and not louder at speed.
You are probably just hearing the exhaust valve as it just opens thru the pipes.
Some Harley's have a arm that the rocker arm rotates on which use to be tight rotates a little and taps a thru bolt.
There is a guy on here that sells a small sleeve.
However, it hurts nothing as is. I would not worry about it.

 

Sounds like typical rocker shaft noise.

Have a look around my website... thousands ticked, thousands cured

John @ Rockout

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They do help reduce the ticking sound ^^^^^

 

A-typically, that lifter noise is addressed by loading the lifter to .140" with an adjustable pushrod.
Scott

 

In your opinion, if a lifter has .200 travel in the piston area, and you load it only about .05, what happens? The reason I ask is I had idle rocker tap. No adjustment and a lot of wear (not sure how much but extremely high mileage) on rocker and pushrod. I replaced lifters and noticed the pushrod when at no play leaves .050 when rocker caps bottom. I still have idle lifter tap even when cold. Am I in the lifter so little that the slight bleed you get at full valve height cannot get pumped up before next lift?

 

I think you have to Name that lifter too, as some (johnson Hi Lifts) says just thirty thousand

 

I'd bet noise would be noticed greatly, as at full thermal expansion of the engine, lash would be there.
Scott

 

Going to assume the cylinder thermally expands longer than the pushrod that has oil running up thru it. Know in my case, the original old but cleaned lifters had wear in the bleed stamped disk (no ball) so I was unable to really know the condition. And I don't have a bleed down setup.

However, when I put the non OEM new lifters in, the noise was apparent when cold and of course only got worse when warm. More like a diesel engine running then tic.

In your post above on setting .140" with an adjustable pushrod, what is the designed total travel of the lifter you are using?