How do you identify bad hydraulic lifters?

[Paul Heneghan]

Anyone know an easy way of identifying bad lifters.  My Avant is sounding
more and more like an old diesel and my wife is now embarrassed to drive it!
I wondered about recording the sound of the engine onto one track of a tape
recorder and recording the signal for spark plug 1 onto the other track.  I
could then use a bit of PC software (like CoolEdit Pro) to display the
signals on a screen and totally confuse myself.

Any less exotic, more practical solutions?

> Paul
> 1984 80q - just won't die
> 1989 Avant 2.2E - ditto
> 

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