Valve noise after latest oil change

LavaRand

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My 2014 Chrysler Town and Country minivan (110k mi) is making LOUD ticking from the valve train. It sounds like only one cylinder.

I changed the oil with regular Valvoline at the Valvoline quick-lube place about 3000 miles ago. Usually I follow the oil life monitor and it has me change it at about 7000.

The weird thing is that in some cases I start the car cold (it's about 30-40F here) and it's quiet. Then, after it warms up a bit, the ticking starts. That's really strange to me.

This type of engine has a known problem with rockers going bad, causing high valve clearance when they get worn too much. But if the rocker was bad, wouldn't it tick all the time?

I thought maybe one of the lifters was stuck and not "lifting". But if that were the case, why would it be quite upon startup and then get noisy? You would think it would be the opposite. Lots of engines are noisy when they start up but get quiet after they get oil pressure.

Is there anything I could do with the oil? Would it make sense to switch to a synthetic oil, or a thicker oil? It doesn't seem right to switch to a thicker oil in the middle of winter.
 
I put the cams back in with only motor oil for lube. But then somebody told me you are supposed to use special assembly lube. I don't see why because the car normally starts up with just oil. Anyway, I'm waiting for my spark plugs and valve cover gaskets to get here from RockAuto. FedEx 2 day delay.

Only one roller was bad, the rest looked/felt tight. A couple of the cam lobes have some scoring or patchy spots on them, even where the rollers seemed good, but I'm not changing them.

If that cam had the lobe partially worn down (tough to tell from photo) then you’re going to have an issue.
 
The cam lobe that was running on the bad rocker has the edges worn down from hitting the frame of the rocker but the center actually looks perfect. And now that there's a new rocker only the center matters again. I just deburred the edges with some emery cloth. That's not the lobe that concerns me actually.

There were two other cam lobs that had some patchy wear on them. I wouldn't call them "worn down". Just maybe some galling-looking spots on the lobe. Not ideal, but nothing that's going to change valve lift whatsoever. Now they are running on new rollers too, so hopefully they will go until something else big fails.

The spark plug from the cylinder with the bad rocker looked significantly darker than the others so I'm hoping the van actually runs better after this.
 
The van is back together and running great. I'll change the oil after I drive it a few times to let the filter accumulate dirt. I definitely dropped some dust into the engine in the process even though I tried to be careful.

I read online that there is a procedure to "teach" the cam phasers, which requires a scan tool or dealer. Is this important? I didn't do anything like that and it seems to be running fine.
 
Van is still running good. I finally found the bad rocker after I tried to cut it apart and it went flying across the shop. None of the little rollers in the needle bearing seem to have escaped. All of the wear is on the center pin which is apparently made of chinesium. It's bizarre to me how this can even happen. Especially considering all the other rockers seemed perfect.
 

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