Noisy valve train

I thought I had a sticking lifter that made a ticking noise. George Pence told me not to drive it because it may have been a rod. I didn't know much about George back then so I ignored him. He was right and I should have listened. I had to buy a whole new motor. It threw a rod and destroyed everything. If I had just listened to George, I would not have had to take out a second morgatge to pay for a new engine. Ask George. He will not steer you wrong.

The first thing I think is oil pressure? Any change? Does it sound like it is on both sides?

Thats scarry DeTom. I kind of thought the same but Lastpushbutton has a point also. The left bank (looking from the back)did not have much oil on the rockers. I do plan on rebuilding the matching number 351C soon. I plan on a new cam, roller lifters & rockers and conversion to adj studs. I was thinking of puttin all this in and see if the noise went away since I have good compression. Then if is the bottom end and the noise is still there there I'll just rip out the cam etc. (keeping track of lifter to lobe to rocker etc. )and rebuild it. What do you think?

OH HECK!!! I just thought of something. If your engine has never been apart before, it means you have the two piece valve!!! That is a very bad thing. Please do not start your engine again until you have talked with George Pence. You may have a broken valve down inside your cylinder.
GEORGE WHERE THE HECK ARE YA???? NEED A LITTLE HELP HERE!!!!

74lqqkr, if you build just the top IE: heads and cam, you will put extra stress on the bottom. I had a Pontiac with a skip. I replaced lifters..still skipped....I replaced the cam...still skipped...I had the heads redone..skip fixed..ran for 3 min. and knocked a rod bearing loose. Then I rebuilt the bottom end. You may as well do the whole thing at one time. Rods, and postons have a given life cycle and then they tend to get tint cracks caused by stress that eventually lets go. Dethom is right about the valves. you will want one peice aftermarket valves. You want to rebuild with the best quality parts you can afford. Then when one of those rice boys gets near you you can smoke him with confidence! george has many great part combonations. I think one is not a high volume oil pump, but a super strong shaft to drive it. He will chime in soon.

WT & DeTom,

A collapsed lifter & a spun connecting rod bearing make the same tap-tap noise. Winding the motor out as you did could cause either problem. Normally a collapsed lifter continues to make racket at idle, instead of quieting down as you have described. Since the noise is disappearing at idle, I would suspect a spun bearing.

The way to go about verifying this, since you have the valve covers off, is to check for a collapsed lifter. The way to check for a collapsed lifter is to find TDC for cylinder #1 on the compression stroke (distributor rotor pointing to the cap terminal for cylinder #1), and try spinning the push rods for the two valves, they should be tight. Turn the crank by hand 90 degrees, and check the next cylinder in the firing order the same way. Do this for all 8 cylinders.

If you find a push rod that can be spun by hand, sigh a breath of relief & replace that lifter. If all 16 push rods are tight, then one must assume you have spun a bearing. This can only be verified by dropping the oil pan and inspecting the big ends of the connecting rods.

DeTom, engines don't operate very long with a valve head banging around inside. WT would not have been able to drive the car home. If this motor starts & idles normally, its not a valve head.....yet.

your friend on the DTBB

What's the 2 pieces of the valve? I thought there was a stem and a face. I can see the tops of the valve stems with ALL the keepers, what else can drop into the cylinder? The idle is rock solid smooth. If something was in the cylinder you would expect a rough idle. My rockers have a stamped light steel plate under the stud bolts that looks like an oil deflector. I assume that this is normal, could this be making noise? This is the first cleveland I have worked on.

I'll check it out... Damn I have to pull the bulkhead out... Can't do this until a couple of days..

Thanks all especially George

quote:

Originally posted by 74LQQKR:
What's the 2 pieces of the valve? ...

The 351C has a nasty habit of dropping valve heads into the running motor. There are posts here you can look up regarding that subject

quote:

Originally posted by 74LQQKR:
...My rockers have a stamped light steel plate under the stud bolts that looks like an oil deflector. I assume that this is normal, could this be making noise?...

Those deflectors are normal, they're not the source of the tap-tap noise

quote:

Originally posted by 74LQQKR:
...Thanks all especially George

you're most welcome WT, keep us apprised of what you find.

your friend on the DTBB

Wheh, thank God you got here in time George. Thanks.
I wasn't trying to scare you WT, but I have seen the pictures of the dropped vavle thing and it was scary. Ruined every single part of the motor. At least I was able to save my old heads when I threw the rod. But had to toss the block, crank broke, camshaft broke, just a bunch of little tiny pieces laying the bottom of an oil pan with a great big hole in the side. I still get all emotional when I think about it. If I remember I will take some pics of all that was left of my engine. It fits in the palm of your hand.

Yup! Scary stuff. I've mothballed my car until I replace my heads and those dreadful 2 piece valves!

Well, I spent all day replacing the lifters. I found 2 that were not pumped up. I could spin the pushrod and depress the wifter by hand. I assumed this was the source of the noise. I replaced all the lifters. NAPA did not have the part so I went to a machine shop in town and he gave me HT-900-B lifters (eq parts#'s NAPA 213-1667, TRW VL-35) he said that all sm blk FORDS are the same. I was very careful to replace the pushrods and rockers in the same location that they came out of. I soaked all the lifters in oil and pumped them up by hand befor installing them. I also put some extra lube at the bottom for the cam contact. I was very careful with the intake gasket (turkey pan). I went to start it and it fired right up and died. It had a sound of dry lifters but sounded good. I tried a few more times and it would rev then die. I could'nt keep it running. I went back and looked at the carb and I forgot to tighten the hose clamp at the fuel line. I fixed that and made sure the squiters were squarting gas and they were. I pump it and it fires and rev's then dies. Acts like it's not getting gas but it sounds ok. I try to keep it running with the peddle and I get some small backfires. This was running perfect before, it just made alittle noise. I just thought of something. I was cleaning the manifold (with the carb still attached) and I was tilting it back and forth, maybe the float is stuck in the carb. It's a Holley. I hope thats the problem. It acts like it's mot getting gas. I was very careful also not to get any old gasket scrapings into the head ports. This should be a simple change since timing/carb was exactly as it was prior.
I'll let you know...

More info.
I got thinking (now I think) and there is also a whisle noise, like sucking air. Like I said on the first start after sitting it fires good but then I hear the whisle noise and it dies. It sounds like its sucking air somewhere. I have a torker intake and when I took it off I had to scrape felt/paper gasket material off the head, there was none on the intake. The intake I got from NAPA did NOT have any gasket other that the metal turkey pan. With the torker should I have put a gasket between the metal gasket and the head as suggested when I removed it? I did not install the torker it was on it when I bought the car.

Thanks,,,,, George?

Hi WT, I haven't been around the home this weekend, just sat down to check things on the DTBB.

Lets talk about the "turkey tray".

I seem to be the only person in the world that can make one seal up. LOL... It takes me about 2 hours to prep one, maybe that's why.

The sole purpose of the turkey tray is to keep the motor oil from contacting the hot "exhaust cross over" on the bottom of the intake manifold. The exhaust crossover gets hot enough to turn the oil to ash. Many intakes do not have an exhaust crossover passage. Many owners block the exhaust crossover passage. Aftermarket heads do not have exhaust crossover passages. If there is no exhaust heat on the bottom of the intake, there is no reason to use the turkey tray.

If you do have an active exhaust crossover, then you MUST use the turkey tray. The FelPro gasket kit, has a set of paper gaskets. They should be glued onto the heads FIRST. Then apply a THICK bead of RTV on the valley rails. Then install the turkey tray. Apply RTV or some other gasket sealant around the ports & on the valley rail of the top side of the turkey tray, then carefully install the manifold. I recommend sealing the top side of the turkey tray to prevent water from getting between the tray & intake & rusting the tray away. Another warning, RTV & gasket sealing products will squeeze out when clamped, so any product applied around the intake ports must be applied sparingly, so it doesn't squeeze out into the ports.

I agree with your assessment that your motor is running out of fuel or running too lean to idle when cold. Will pumping of the gas pedal, to activate the accelerator pumps, keep the motor running? Stuck fuel bowls, kinked fuel lines, several possibilities.

Lets hope the lifters solved the tap-tap noise! Sounds very likely that was the problem.

I need to touch on the subject of lubrication while we're at it. Your new lifters need a good anti-scuff agent in the oil for break in, and preferably for normal running too. In the good ol' days, the oil manufacturers added ZDDP to their oil, but ZDDP shortens the life of catalytic converters, so that product is no longer found in the oils manufactured for gasoline engines. My recommendation is to pour a can of GM EOS, or Bardahl 1 in with your oil, and with each oil change in the future.

Good luck, keep us apprised of your progress.

Your friend on the DTBB

Thanks George,

The gasket set I got from NAPA did NOT have the paper gaskets, but it did have instructions in 5 different languages. I now have the correct felpro set with the turkey tray and the paper gaskets. I also bought the felpro thicker set. I was thinking of using both paper gaskets. The thin against the head then the tray then the thicker against the torker manifold. Do you think that this is too thick? When I took the manifold off originally it had the paper against the head then the tray and then the torker, as you described. I've already taken it back off but want you opinion on the second thicker gasket against the torker manifold. I'm getting tired of the contortioning and sitting on the ZF. Oh, all the lifters look like they will be ok, at least they stayed pumped up with just the little running it did. Hope to hear from you today I plan on putting it back to gether tonight.

cheers

Hi WT,

I just noticed you live in the tri-city area. I interviewed for a job with WPPSS the week Mt St Helens relieved itself.

I advise against running the thicker gaskets on top of the turkey tray, instead run a very very small bead of RTV around each port, right around the outside of the raised part of the turkey tray that encircles each port, plus a generous amount on the valley rails. Allow a half hour to an hour for the bead of RTV to dry before plopping on the intake.

your friend onthe DTBB

Thanks again George. Yep tri cities area. I'm working on the vit plant. I hate to sho my ignorance but where is the "valley rails"?

thanks

The turkey tray has 4 sealing surfaces. 2 of them, the left hand & right hand sides of the turkey tray, seal around the ports between the intake manifold & cylinder heads. the other 2 sealing surfaces, at the front & back of the turkey tray, seal between the intake manifold & the tops of the lifter valley rails.

I guess another way to describe them would be the bulkheads that enclose the front & back of the lifter valley.

your friend on the DTBB

Since the "Cleveland" was sent to Australia, why don't we rename it the Emu tray? They don't have turkeys in Australia.

Too small for an emu mate.

Now go throw another lobster on the bar-by, crack open a Fosters, and sing a few bars of tie me kangaroo down.

your mate on the DTBB

Did as you suggested and every thing seems ok. It started fine last night and I did not hear any strange noises like before. Reved it up a bit but did not drive it. I'll drive it tonight..

Thanks George.

quote:

Originally posted by 74LQQKR:
...Thanks George.

you're welcome my friend