Knock/rattle at lowish rpm. 455 *teardown/rebuild pg5*

The chips in your filter could be steel from chewed up valvetrain.
You are making too many changes at once to isolate anything.
Forums can have good info but be misleading due to having way too many cooks in the kitchen.

 

I hear you, I've just been trying everything possible before I pull the engine. Harbor Freight tomorrow for a cherry picker, sadly

 

I'd pull off the VC as suggested and play with a stethescope otherwise.
A certain amount of the guessing here is based on assuming diagnosis from the original post.
Hopefully detonation has been eliminated or isolated but it's really tough to go by description.
The thing about detonation problems is that even if you found damaged rockers or shafts, 2 weeks later that bearing might get loud as you chase down the 'lost power' you had.

I can appreciate the tenacity towards the repair, I kind of hoped to get more done this weekend instead of spending time with my loving family (sarcasm)

 

I didn't hear any detonation, I heard a slight hammer or knock like bearing/s, but the vid is nowhere near long enough

 

Yes, that isn't too hard. Pop the motor mounts lift it with a hoist. Not sure about the snout of the crank/balancer. I checked rods and mains on a motor one weekend that way in a gravel lot.

I listened to the video again at higher volume and I can hear nothing other than revving motor and the 3 & 6 second double tick.

 

You can pull the vavle covers and use the smartphone with slow motion video record. Than start the engine en film the valve train.

 

Nice...you can hear every little sound the engine is making depending on where you're aiming the recorder. Great idea!

 

Engine is out. Found a nice 1/4" gap at the rear intake manifold sealant :/

 

Well, this greeted me on the oil pickup screen. It's a fiber clump of some sort, embedded with assorted gasket pieces and relatively few metal flakes

 

No rod bearings spun, but most look something like #3 here, lots of coating worn and flaking

 

This little non magnetic fella was hanging in the bottom of the oil pan

 

Along with all this grit, and a slightly dented pan. Lots of WTF trash in this engine

 

And most of the mains look like this.


Tomorrow the front cover and cam will come out, then it's measuring time. Cylinders and piston look respectable, maybe some new bearings and gaskets will do the trick.

 

That's some quick work, too bad about the shavings though. Good that you didn't push
the motor any farther and cause more damage.

 

I'm sorry it came to that but it looks like you probably caught it in time to salvage it. Looks like a sub-par, in-car budget rebuild on the motor. Makes you wonder if they even pulled the pan if it didn't have .040 pistons in it. That's what I'd expect if you scraped the head gaskets into the lifter galley and didn't clean it out.

Check or get everything checked and cross your fingers.

While you are there, check the heads and measure how far down the piston is in the head. That will let you know what mechanical compression ratio you are working with if you find the cam lacking.

 

A quick check before I pulled them has the pistons down about .050 from the top of the cylinder. Taking the cam out today, then cleaning and inspecting. The rod bearings are .020 over, and the crank has some grooves, so we will see how that cleans up

 

Cam bearings. Someone just threw this poor thing together

 

Crank is at .010, so it looks like everything should clean up. On a budget, so is there any cheap insurance or good ideas? Ill be doing the oil mods and TA cam bearings.

Maybe a thinner head gasket?