E28 Valvetrain noise

["Carl Runion" <crunion@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Digesters,

I have an 86 535i with about 160K miles on it.

After it warms up there seems to be a little more valvetrain noise that I am
comfortable with.  It seems to be most noticeable around 1500-2000 rpm and
isn't there at all when the engine is cold.   The last time I changed the
oil I put in 20W50 but it didn't seem to have any effect.  It may be my
imagination but I think there have been a couple times that the noise wasn't
there.

Because of that I'm wondering if there might be something itermittantly
blocking the pickup screen.  Sound reasonable?

Has anybody else out there had similar experiences?

I am planning on checking the oil pressure tomorrow.  I've got a Haynes and
a Chilton's manual and it seems that they quoted very different numbers for
acceptable oil pressure (anybody know what Bentley says?).  And anybody
checked their oil pressure and remember what the reading was?

It seems that there are very few issues with oil pumps on the digest which
makes me think that it is probably not my oil pump going bad.

Thanks in advance for any input,

Carl Runion
Knoxville, TN

'86 535i 160k Mi

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