[mreakus]

Yes I'm aware of the infamous lifter tick at normal start-ups but this seems far worse. When the car has sat overnight in some pretty cold nights - I get a very, very loud tap at original startup which does not go away if I leave it running. (Well I've been too afraid to let it run too long to see if it actually would go away. Longest I've done was about 5 minutes). I have to shut the engine down, and restart it then it's as if it never happened. Quite honestly, all I need to do to remedy the tap is start - immediately shut off and then restart. I'm just worried something is going bad and I don't want to tear the top off if it's unnecessary at this point.

Anybody have any ideas or things I should look into? I bought this car to learn about mechanic work so I'm not very skilled but am willing to do what's necessary to learn and fix!