rocker or lifter noise please help

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rcottick

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well the much awaited day has come and gone. Car is all back together but making noise from the passenger side badly. I switched from a mechanical cam to hydraulic and put new cam lifters and correct pushrods in. Adjusted the lash according to the chart to a tee setting the preload on the lifters everything was completely coated in break in lube. Now after many times with the valve cover off then back on I started it with the cover off and held each rocker. Didnt seem to affect the noise to much but did a little. After shutting it off what i did notice is I am able to push down fairly easily on 3 off the lifters on the passenger side and none on the drivers. I am assuming these 3 are not pumping up and they are brand new. I have great oil pressure and everything is adjusted to specs. WHAT DO I DO NOW......
 
Is the rocker shaft installed the correct way so that the oil holes are facing the bottom of the rockers? The notch in the shaft facing down?
 
yes the notches are facing down and to the front drivers rear passenger. They werent at first but are now and still no change. There does seem to be a lot of play side to side between the rockers. Factory adjustable iron rockers.
 
I haven`t had a lot of luck with hydraulic lifters either. The sets I bought for my big block and small block both had one lifter that wouldn`t pump up. I eventually went solid on the bb and since the sb is staying stock, I`m just going to replace the one lifter that`s not up to pressure. One alternative would be to buy the anti-pump up lifters offered by Crane.
 
Hopefully your cam hasn't been munched. What brand cam and lifters? Did you break the cam in in accordance with the cam manufacturers instructions?
 
yeah I hope the cam isnt hurt either. I broke it in correctly it is lunatti cam and lifter kit. I havent got a clue what to do now except to tear into it all and I dont want to do that.
 
good luck

My 340 is out and being rebuilt again. I was running Comp Cams hyd. with their adjustable rockers.

Kept loosing oil pressure and rattling the lifters and bending push rods

Going with soild this time and hope it never happens again. We never found the root cause, still guessing what happened to it.

The Comp Cams said the cam looked like it had 100,000 miles when it only had 3,000. The rebuilt motor will always have the zinc additive in it. In the last few years it seeems more people are having oiling issue with their sma block Mopars, something I NEVER heard of back when they were just daily drivers in the 70's.

some things to check would be the lifter bore size

Good Luck
 
Please do reply....I'll be starting a fresh motor in a week or two. It has a new Summit Cam & Lifter kit. I'm kinda getting skittish!
 
Well I puuled the intake and all the lifters. The drivers side all lifters were solid passenger side 5 were not pumped up. After looking in the lifter bores the driver side has has large holes and you can see the oil galley but on the passenger side, someone has bushed or filled in with bronze all the holes so no oil can get to the lifter. I am assuming this is not supposed to be this way. And that would explain all the noise and why the lifters werent pumping up. Remeber I switched from a solid cam and lifters to a hydraulic. Now what the heck do I do???????

Ron
 
Did you do the solid lifter setup, or was it already in the engine when you bought it? The reason I ask is for clarification. Sounds to me like you are a victim of the bushed lifter bore oiling "improvement". One of the old racer tricks was to bush the lifter bores on the passenger side of the block so no oil would be bled off feeding the lifters and go to the mains instead. This was done to cure an alleged oiling problem that only reared it's ugly head at a ridiculous RPM level.
By leaving the driver's side alone enough oil splashed around in the lifter valley to lubricate solid lifters on the passenger side and the mains had oil until something else broke. The only way to fix it is to go back to solid lifters or have the passenger side lifter bore bosses opened up for oil flow. If you are very good with a die grinder a short snort in the right place will do it, or you may be better off having the bosses rebushed for hydraulic lifters.
I would recommend a new cam and lifters as well, pending inspection. Hope this helps and keep us posted.
 
That is exactly what I wasfearing. I didnt do this to the lifter bores it was already done. Now I guess my only choices are to go back to solid cam and lifter or tear this thing down completely. I really would like to be able to run this thing as I just got it all back together.

Ron
 
rcottick said:
Well I puuled the intake and all the lifters. The drivers side all lifters were solid passenger side 5 were not pumped up. After looking in the lifter bores the driver side has has large holes and you can see the oil galley but on the passenger side, someone has bushed or filled in with bronze all the holes so no oil can get to the lifter. I am assuming this is not supposed to be this way. And that would explain all the noise and why the lifters werent pumping up. Remeber I switched from a solid cam and lifters to a hydraulic. Now what the heck do I do???????

Ron
Click to expand...

Holy crap! I just can't believe the things that I've seen on this forum. Sorry to hear of your deliema rcottick.

The only right way to fix this is (and you're not going to like it) is to pull the engine, strip it down and bring it to a real, honest-to-goodness qualified machinist and let him know what you found. Lord knows what else you might find when you break this thing down. At the very least the lifter oil galley plugs will have to come out, a drill run through and the lifter bores de-burred. This is assuming that the nitwit who bushed the bored, bored them straight and true to begin with. If not, the block may be scrap.

Solid rollers back in the day relied on splash oiling and the lifter bores could be bushed without drilling, but they would self-destruct on the street due to the lack of oil to the roller bearings in extended idle conditions. This was also done to route more oil to the crank and rods. Now, some solid roller manufacturers have gone to pressurized roller bearings to survive street/strip duty.

Again, sorry man.

EDIT: I see grumpus has already answered and he is right too.
 
finding the right bushing with the correct tolerances and redrilling is the trick, and I do mean trick, could remove bushings and find an oversize tappet but wont be easy, if possible. also, never use cam lube on any lifter except the spot face that touches the cam. Ill have a more definitivave answer this afternoon.sorry to hear that, same problem other guy above you is having.
 
mopar3762 said:
I think he means the lifter bores were sleeved grump
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no they werent sleeved. The bores look to have a bronze or brass filling inside the oil holes blocking off any feed to the lifters only on the passenger side.

I swapped back to the solid cam and lifters I was running and its fine now other than the trans taking a dump See other post in the trans section for details. If it isnt one thing its another with this pig.
 
what you have is the setup for a roller cam engine2-4-6-8 being bushed
 
SHat Shat Shat I just spent 3 hours in the shop trying to find the source of the knock in my 1965 273 motor. It has 600 miles on it (rebuilt last year) with a hyd. cam converted from solid lifters. Ran great all last summer.
It started last weekend cruising at 55, a constant rattle. Feared it was a rod knock, but did not happen under load only cruising speed 2000 RPM.
The rockers are loose some lifters do not seem to stay pumped up.
Oil pressure dropped from 60 to 40psi when hot.

So whats the fix? all new lifters?
Can I put solids on the hyd cam?
 
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