| The day is now Saturday afternoon and I'm
wanting to go to a car show on Sunday, so the task at hand is
to get these seals installed. The new seals are made a little
different than my old ones (which Gary gave me when I first bought
my heads) but they were made out of Teflon and should do fine. They
went on pretty easily and once I had them all replaced, I was ready
to here the car run again, just to make sure everything was good to
go.
After a couple of hours
of 100 degree heat, they went on pretty easily.
And once I had them all
replaced, I was ready check my handy work and listen to the engine
run
again, just to make sure everything was good to go. Once I turned the
key, the sound of a running engine filled the garage once again. But
that running engine didn't sound as good as I remembered. I had
another noise now, different than before, but a noise none the less.
"Now what"???
I was hot, tired and now very frustrated to mess with this
anymore so I went into the house wondering what it could be. And I
hate trying to go to sleep when my mind was working overtime
thinking about what I just heard.
The morning came quickly and I hit the garage by 6 am. ready to
find my new problem. My plan was to check the valve lash in the
hopes that I may have missed one because that's what it sounded
like. Sure enough, I found a loose one that I had missed (I guess I
was getting ahead of myself the night before) and soon had it
adjusted....correctly.. And like magic, that fixed the problem.
After listening to the engine run for a few minutes, it looked
like we would be able to attended that car show. And once we had the
car packed, off we went. Now I'm sure some of you, if not all, find
the on-ramp to the freeway a place to release some stress. Now this
would be the case with me as I slowly depressed that right pedal
about half way down.
As we entered the flow of traffic, I noticed yet another noise,
at least I thought I heard something...or was it just my mind
playing tricks on me from the past few days. Now the show is only a
few miles away so I went ahead and stayed with the plan, attended
the show.
Once I was off the freeway and came to a stop, I knew for sure
that I had a problem....again!! I'm thinking to myself, "can't I
catch a break"? As I pulled into the show, I had a few people
starring at me because my car sounded terrible, like one cylinder
wasn't firing. Did a plug wire come off? Do I have an electrical
problem? Did something break in the valve train?
The show had lot's of cars show up and once we were ready to go
home, I made it a plan to be one of the last cars to leave because
this was embarrassing. The trip back home consisted of taking all
the back streets in place of the freeway, just in case I broke down.
Once I was home, all I could think about was my NEW sound that the
car had. But that would have to wait till the next day because it
was late and I was tired.
Monday rolled around and again, all I could think about at work
was car related. My plan was to change all the sparkplugs first in
the hopes that it could be something that simple. I had just changed
the plugs a few weeks ago so my old ones were still sitting on my
workbench. Once the switch was made, I started it up only to hear
the same noise. Oh well, it was worth a try.
My next thought was to remove the valve covers (I'm getting
pretty good at doing that by now) and look for the worst. I hooked up my
remote starter switch and began to check that each rocker arm was
moving up and down. Yep, they all were so what could it be? Well the
thought of a misadjusted valve came to mind again (because I did
miss one the other day) so that would be the next thing I would look
for. I was on my second cylinder when I discovered what looked like
a loose valve again, only this time it wasn't just a little loose,
there was something wrong.
Thoughts of a broken rocker arm had crossed my mind. Or maybe a
bad lifter or cam (oh please no). Once I had removed that rocker
arm, I checked it out very carefully, only to find it was okay.
Hmmm....well that wasn't it. Now the worst is going through the ol'
gray matter again as I looked at the engine. I removed the push-rod
to see if it looked bad or not and found one end to have a small
burr on it. Not good news here, but I must be getting close. And
this isn't the place I wanted to find the problem because that would
mean I would have to pull the intake manifold if I had a bad lifter
or cam.
What I needed to do now was take a closer look at the top of the
lifter because whatever burred up the end of the push rod, would
likely (insert ugly thoughts here) be visible . I grabbed a
flashlight and took a long hard look. What I saw was what looked
like a hurt lifter, but it was hard to tell with oil covering the
business end. I thought if I had a magnetic screwdriver, I could
insert it in the top of the lifter pocket, pull it back out and
check to see if any metal was on the end. Nope, no metal.....that
was good news.
After looking at the top of the lifter a little longer, I believe
I found my problem. What I saw was the round shape of the push rod
lightly stamped into
the top of the lifter.
These lifters are made with two different
materials, aluminum and steel. The top part portion is aluminum,
(which is soft) to which the hardened steel push rod was riding on
for a short time when it was adjusted wrong. Now the push rod needs
to sit in the cup of the lifter (which is made out of steel), not
the small flat area above it. Now the push
rod needs to sit in the cup of the lifter, not the small flat above
it. Here's what looks like happened. When I had some of the push
rods out of the engine while I was replacing the springs, I ended up
putting the push rod back, but it wasn't down in the cup of the
lifter like it should have been. With that being said, I ended up
adjusting the valve lash with the push rod in the wrong place. When
I started the engine before we went to the show, it sounded great
but after a few minutes, it worked it's way off the flat section
down into the cup where it belongs. That difference is about 1/4"
which made the valve not open very much, if at all. With the valve
not opening very much, that made the engine act like a it had only
seven cylinders.
Now I'm sure this has happened to a few other people in the past
but this is the first time that I've ever done this. And likely
won't happen to me again now that I know what to look for. The only
unknown for me at this point is if my cam and lifter are going to live
a long and healthy life or not.
With Summer coming to a
close, there is still a lot of car show season ahead of us. And I
would hate to take the engine apart right now, so wish me luck
because only time will tell.
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