As the topic says, I've been doing this with help from this site and gregory's manual and had done what I thought to be a pretty successful job. Unfortunately when we fired it up there is a huge amount of tappet noise coming from the valvetrain. We let it run for a minute or 2 and it got marginally quieter but its still making this noise. Have I not done something? Is there something I need to do? I put the extra shims in and the cam is a Wade 1636. Hope someone could advise?

Did you release the little ball valve thingy on the inside of the lifter? If you did that they might just need a little more time to "pump up". Some people soak the lifters in oil overnight to let them fill by themselves to try and elieviate the initial rattle.

Did you use/reuse the HLA retainers? Some other chaps on here recommended leaving them out as the HLAs will not move freely with the extra shims installed. I followed their advice and had no problems.

you say you changed cams? you dont need to shim it as well?

Cheer's for the replies guys. It seems that a short run around the block was all it needed, but not before I pulled the rocker cover off and checked everything again. Was a bit of a panic attack though, hearing all that noise initially, considering the main reason I did this job was to get rid a similar, albeit quieter noise.

Yea I put an extra set of shims in, apparently with the wade 1636 cam, its a regrind and needs shimming. I just did what I was told.

The HLA's have retainers? News to me, I just ordered replacements from Cov's and put them in. The old ones had a black ring near the top although on most it had disintegrated. Also, on the old HLA's it was almost impossible to push the tops down (against the spring pressure) compared to the new ones. I guess this was where the noise was coming from.

Thats because they have oil in them still. You need to bleed the lifters. Used a scribe or piece of wire with a point, press it in to the middle of the lifter and press down, this realeases the check valve and allows the oil to flow back out.