Pre-soliciting Introduction

Welcome to the slanted party!

Do some searching and reading about your engine. Then read some more. A '80 slant would be a hydraulic cam (I think) so I would suggest reading up on the cut-off year for solid to hydraulic. If it's ticking and a hydro cam... who knows what may be making the noises.

This site is great, but it hasn't been around long enough to amass the knowledge at the slantsix.org site. Just clicking on the faq sticky in the engine section http://www.slantsix.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38446 will give you more than enough to read for a month. From air cleaner nuts to the drain plug it has been tried over there.