So this is my month for trouble. The car plainly wishes to be put away for the season! Got a "ticktickticktickticktick" from the driver's side this afternoon. Thought it must be exhaust- but no leaks, header bolts tight. Then I thought about the mystery noise from a few years ago that turned out to be the rocker arm shaft, and when I ran it without the valve cover on, whew, was the tick louder! Rocker arm bolts where tight. I'll have to work on the engine this weekendou:
Did you run it for about 10 minutes or more? I had a tick come out one day out of the blue, and it went away almost as fast as it came. One started ticking when Larry was doing the timing on my car in Milan this July....and it just went away after a few minutes. Very weird.
i've had worse. my driver (I6 mustang) starter ticking LOUDLY from somewhere in the valve train after i guess i revved that little crap motor up too far one day. i almost didn't notice at first, i thought the truck in front of me at the light was diesel or something.:grin: it went away the next time i started the car...and get this, it seemed to have a little more power. must have blown the cobwebs out or something.o No:
I have oil on that bank. This has been happening for approximately the last 2 hours of operation on the engine. I go on the highway every day to get to work, so it sees a good range of rpm. I put a bit of Marvel Mystery oil in the gas yesterday, and it needs an oil change, so maybe I'll go with a bit heavier weight oil (I'm using 10w-30 synthetic). I'll also hook up a real pressure gauge and see what the oil pressure is like.
Does this mean you have oil pressure at the rockers? You checked with the VC off? Hey Chris, how's it going? What kind of rockers/shafts are you using? Stock, aluminum, steel, or aftermarket replacements? Before you tear anything apart, you might check each pushrod for *excessive* clearance, but you must check only when the valves closed. This means you'll have to hand rotate the engine a couple times to check. Hopefully, this will identify the problem, or at least give you a definite direction to look. Excessively worn rocker arm/shaft, collapsed lifter, flat cam lobe (from bad to worse in order:ball Good luck Chris, been there a couple of times and there's NOTHING worse than bad noises.:gt: Let us know how it goes.
Hiya Jeff I have oil coming out of the pushrods, Yes. I currently have the stock arms and rockers (originals) installed. The pushrods are something I'm looking at, perhaps one got bent, but then you gotta figure...how?:grin: VC...I am drawing a blank on that one. Seems like I should know it, but I am mystified... I put a stethoscope on it today and it seems like the #7 cylinder is suspect, I'm thinking exhaust lifter, because I have had some loud backfires in the exhaust lately, too. I called a couple places looking for lifters "just in case". I had to explain what lifters were to one guy at Autozone. Then, honest to God, he tried to sell me a hydrualic winch. uzzled: I don't think it's the cam, my old one had round lobes and it idled like a dream with no bad noises, just didn't make much power:laugh: It could easily be a rocker arm, but the noise seems to be under the intake manifold. Well, we'll see tomorrow. I have no problems tearing the engine apart, I just don't particularly want to spend another 12 hours fixing my car- I did that last weekend!:gt: On the other hand, I've pulled the manifold just to clean it, in the past, so maybe it'll be nice to have the chance to clean the engine really good before I put it away. I'm expecting a collapsed lifter. Hopefully, it's only as complex as that:TU: I've wrung this engine out pretty good for the last 4 years with no trouble, heck it still goes like a scalded cat...ok, a 4,000 pound scalded cat:grin:
:grin: Valve Cover:grin: :Brow: :Brow: Hey Chris, roll the engine over by hand until suspect valve is closed and that lifter is on the base circle of the cam. With the VC grin: ) off, try and roll the pushrod between your fingers, wiggle the rocker arm, ect. checking for excessive play. I think you know the drill.. You might also unbolt the rocker arm shaft and inspect the bottom side for large wear marks. But it sounds like it is collapsed lifter as you suspect.
Yes. I talked to TA Performance, and they said a lfter with "969" in the code should be sized for a Buick 455. These numbers I got from a local parts place-These spellings may be wrong: Melling: JB-969 Wolverine: H-L 1969 Hi-Tek: K-H-969-4 I was warned by TA that they have recently found that lifters made in the US with the proper code are probably OK, but lifters made out of country with the proper code may have oiling problems.
errrr....ummm... OK, tore into it today... First of all, my rocker arm shaft on the driver's side is, ah, how do I put this, um, broken in two. Right smack dab in the middle of the second bolt that holds it in, between the #1 and #3. Two nice pieces, kinda unusual. Secondly, one of my valves on the #5 (I forget which already, I want to say exhaust), is a bit odd... the valve stem is below the level of the keeper. Wasn't like that last time I lookedou:
Dropped a valve, damn. The broken shaft must have flopped around and knocked a keeper loose. You should get some air pressure into that cylinder to keep the valve from falling the rest of the way down.:ball: The valve stem must be gummed up holding it in place for now.o No: Can you compress that spring while it is still on the head? You should just be able to get some new rocker arm shafts and put her back together, IF you can get the valve spring compressed and put the keepers back in. Hopefully you can do this without having to pull the head, it doesn't sound like the valve has ever touched a piston. Let me know if you need a deal on a good set of steel rocker arm shaft assys:Brow: ... otherwise they are about $140/pr. Good Luck!!
Thanks, Jeff. I have heard you can compress the springs with the head on, but I never thought I'd be trying it. Pulling the head isn't such a chore, I already have the manifold off...learned a new trick, though- loosen the bung for the coolant temp probe and have a wet/dry vacuum handy, then just suck the coolant out. Made the job much neater. At least I know what the noise was now... The valve looks like it's in by the skin of it's teeth. Drove it for two days like that...left a parking lot sideways one of those days, too:laugh: I'll post pics of the valve keepr situation and the broken shaft when I get my hands on the camera. Good for a look-see if nothing else. In the back of my head, I'm thinking, 'well, you were buying aluminum heads ANYway...' It's just too bad it's about 2 or three weeks away from when I put her away, it will be torture if I buy those heads this late in the season, but then again I don't really want to do head work on a set of heads that are so undesireable (smog heads,small valve) For laughs I checked the diameter of my lifters...man talk about tolerances, they were all within .002" of each other at any point along the lifter's length, .842" to .844" was the range I got with my dial calipers. I was impressed. Cam lobes look good, and the bottoms of the lifters all look great, so I prefer to look at that bit of good news rather than the valve situation, for now:TU: Of course, that cam is going to get replaced with a more agressive one, but at least I don't have to replace it for a good long time judging by it's wear. Focusing on the positive is tough right now concerning this, but hey, I could have broken a lifter bore, right? Could be worse.
I'm just saying it would be VERY cool IF you could get spring compressed and the keepers back in there.... all you need then is a new rocker shaft assy!! That's not too bad $-wise!! Better than losing an exhaust valve seat, like someone I know well... :ball: I'm sure someone around here can tell ya how to compress that spring.:beer
Chris I'm sure I have a pair of rocker arm assemblies around here somewhere. I'll give them to you for the cost of shipping if you want them. No guarantees though. They would be parts I got in "package trades", that I've never used, nor have any of the history on them. Shoot me a PM if you want a pair. :beer
Thanks, Rick. I appreciate the offer but I have been hooked up with the shaft I need. All I need to do know is decide whether to yank the head or try to fix it in-place. In-place would be neat but the more I think about it, the more I want to take that valve out and look at it. I had valve trouble on that head 5 years ago, on two exhaust valves. I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm gonna drop in a new valve, button her up, drive her up to my shop and put her away, and put in a new set of heads in the spring. I'm sick of messing with crummy heads:grin: I guess I shouldn't complain about head trouble once every 5 years, but to tell you the truth, the stuff that I built myself four years ago is in great shape, and these heads, that were done by a pro, have issues. The machinist I used for the head work has a great rep, but I should have taken the heads to the guy I used to do my block and crank prep. Tommy would have done the heads right the first time, no worries. Live and learn.
OK, I got a valve spring compresser and took a look. at the valves...three pairs of keepers were broken:shock: Of the 6 individual keepers I replaced, 5 were split vertically into two halves, and of those 5, 4 were also deformed by the valve (see attached diagram, pics when I get the camera) One keeper in a damaged pair seemed OK, but I replaced that as well...
Here's a trick I thought I had come up with, but later learned that nearly everyone else has already done the same thing. When you want to compress a valve spring with the head(s) on the engine, take out the spark plugs to make turning the engine over by hand much easier. Put your finger over the spark plug hole on the one where you want to compress the spring and turn the engine over until you start to feel compression building. Turn the engine in the opposite direction about 45*. Feed a rope into the spark plug hole (I use 1/4" yellow nylon. No lint that way). Feed in plenty of rope, preferably all it will take. Then continue to turn the engine over BY HAND ONLY at this point until it stops turning. It doesn't take manhandling and getting it tight. Just snug. Now you have the rope compressed between the piston and the cylinder head, holding the valve closed. You can then do pretty much anything you like except remove the valves! When I did this on my kid's Saturn (POS!!), he first thought he finally had the evidence of me totally losing my mind , now he thinks his old man is some kind of genius!:jd:
You might want to ask Jim W about lifter issues. He has run into some problems with quality control and using standard hi-po lifters when running roller rockers. He had to go with the Comp Cams top of the line lifters in order to get them to work correctly. My engine did not rev past about 5000 rpms with the standard hi-po's. I also believe that a little noise is normal on some setups. Apparently there are some issues when running roller rockers as opposed to standard. Brian
