I have a 98 4.3 blazer and latley (cold months) i will get a slight tick when i first start the truck up. if i give it a lil gas it goes away in about 10 seconds like one of the lifters is being pumped up. all the lifters were replaced when i did the intake gasket back in august. About 2k sence the last oil change. currently running 10W-30 synthetic. Im going to do an oil change next week so i was wondering, should use thicker oil ( 10W-40) or thinner oil (5W-30) in the winter months? also what brand of oil / filter have you guys had good luck with?

 

i like Castrol, lately Ive been using 4 quarts of oil and a 1/2 quart of Lucas Synthetic Oil Stabilizer. It worked great at cold starts. I use ACDelco oil filter PF52.

 

It might be a problem with the anti-drainback valve on the oil filter that you were using...check out my post here:

https://blazerforum.com/forum/showth...ght=oil+filter

Hope this helps!

MrBill99

 

GM specs call for 5-30.

 

thinner oil is better for cold weather anyways.

 

this post is a little old and figured I would add to this since it is getting cold again, but I get that same tick at start-up if I use a regular oil. I tried high mileage oils but none of them seemed to fix this problem. The solution to your problem is to run Castrol 30 weight oil and it will get rid of the ticking for good. The lifters arent getting enough oil, seems to be a common problem for these engines and it just needs a thicker oil to keep it lubricated. I've been running 30 weight since 80K miles and have not had any troubles out of it. My engine still runs strong and I never get that ticking on very cold start ups. If you go back to a regular oil after using the 30 weight and do a cold start up the ticking will come back.