how to tell exhaust leak from valves out of adjustment

[theksmith]

My friend has a 4runner that we put a reman longblock in a couple of months ago. It has developed a "ticking" under acceleration/load only. From what I've read online this is most likely either valves needing adjustment or an exhaust leak in the header. We listened carefully, but can't isolate where the sound comes from at all Is there some way to tell which this is, or do some of you think it's something else all together?

Also, we used RTV on the gasket betweens the exhaust headers and head, which we later found out we shouldn't have done... so there could be a leak there if it blew out. However, the guy we got the longblock from said we might need to adjust valves... so that sounds plausible too. We don't have alot of time to mess with it and don't want to do shotgun maintenence...

thanks for any suggestions!

 

[theksmith]

i realize this is a non-xj thing, but i figure it's a pretty common problem that some of you seasoned mechanics could help with?

 

[87manche]

so you used RTV between the head and the exhaust manifold?
Take the manifold off, clean it and put a proper gasket with copper sealant on it if it's required. Some gaskets come with sealant embedded, and they will say no sealant on the gasket itself. If you used RTV on that then it's certainly not right, and I'd be willing to bet that it's melted through or blown out and you're got an exhaust leak. Either way, it's not right and needs to be fixed.

 

[theksmith]

we used a gasket, but it was part of a huge gasket set and had no instructions, the RTV was "hi temp" but as I said, we since heard that using it was not necessary.

I was hoping someone could enlighten us to how to determine exactly what the 'ticking" is, i.e. futher troubleshooting steps. But I guess we'll go ahead and re-do the exhaust headers first thing.