LIFTERS WENT BAD????--NEED ADVICE

I was referring to the pin in the cam gear not the distributor.

dkp

torino501 wrote:what are the spring spec's....? to much spring press will kill the hydro plungers

The heads I have are Ford Racing Super Cobra Jet aluminum heads purchased from Summit Racing (p/n FMS-M-6049-SCJA). They came fully assembled with valves and springs. Here are the specs on the springs from the Summit Website: "Notes:These heads are equipped with valve springs for flat tappet or hydraulic roller camshafts, seat pressure 130 lbs., open pressure 340 lbs."

Intake Valve Diameter (in):2.200 in.
Exhaust Valve Diameter (in):1.760 in.
Maximum Valve Lift (in):0.660 in.

I also purchased the Crane Cam from Summit also (p/n CRN-359341)

Basic Operating RPM Range:2,000-5,500
Intake Duration at 050 inch Lift:216
Exhaust Duration at 050 inch Lift:224
Duration at 050 inch Lift:216 int./224 exh.
Advertised Intake Duration:278
Advertised Exhaust Duration:286
Advertised Duration:278 int./286 exh.
Intake Valve Lift with Factory Rocker Arm Ratio:0.556 in.
Exhaust Valve Lift with Factory Rocker Arm Ratio:0.580 in.
Valve Lift with Factory Rocker Arm Ratio:0.556 int./0.580 exh.
Lobe Separation (degrees):112

bosshoss wrote:I was referring to the pin in the cam gear not the distributor.

dkp

Oh, I misunderstood you. I don't know the answer to that question. I haven't opened up the engine yet.

Sure sounds like bent pushrods to me.

torino501 wrote:what are the spring spec's....? to much spring press will kill the hydro plungers

The heads I have are Ford Racing Super Cobra Jet aluminum heads purchased from Summit Racing (p/n FMS-M-6049-SCJA). They came fully assembled with valves and springs. Here are the specs on the springs from the Summit Website: "Notes:These heads are equipped with valve springs for flat tappet or hydraulic roller camshafts, seat pressure 130 lbs., open pressure 340 lbs."

Intake Valve Diameter (in):2.200 in.
Exhaust Valve Diameter (in):1.760 in.
Maximum Valve Lift (in):0.660 in.

I also purchased the Crane Cam from Summit also (p/n CRN-359341)

Basic Operating RPM Range:2,000-5,500
Intake Duration at 050 inch Lift:216
Exhaust Duration at 050 inch Lift:224
Duration at 050 inch Lift:216 int./224 exh.
Advertised Intake Duration:278
Advertised Exhaust Duration:286
Advertised Duration:278 int./286 exh.
Intake Valve Lift with Factory Rocker Arm Ratio:0.556 in.
Exhaust Valve Lift with Factory Rocker Arm Ratio:0.580 in.
Valve Lift with Factory Rocker Arm Ratio:0.556 int./0.580 exh.
Lobe Separation (degrees):112

bosshoss wrote:I was referring to the pin in the cam gear not the distributor.

dkp

Oh, I misunderstood you. I don't know the answer to that question. I haven't opened up the engine yet.

bigblok2000ranger wrote:Sure sounds like bent pushrods to me.

I thought that too, but I checked the pushrods and they are straight as an arrow....

Do a compression test and post up the results...

466cj wrote:Do a compression test and post up the results...

I've got one more test to do and if I don't discover the problem I'll do a compression test....

Talked to a guy today and he told me it sounds like the oil system is sucking air somewhere. He said he had it happen on a truck once and found that the oil pickup tube was cracked and it was sucking air and the air was getting into the lifters and the results were the same as what I'm having (lifters not staying pumped up). So long story short, I'm going to back off all the rocker arms till they are sloppy loose, prime the oil system with a drill, let the lifters set overnight to give them a chance to rebound and pump up, and then set the preload at 1/2 turn. Then fire it up and see what happens. This might take me a couple days to do since I'm going to let the lifters set overnight before I tighten the rocker arms with the 1/2 turn preload.

But there's one thing about doing a compression test I have a question about.....cylinder compression is a separate system and doesn't have any effect on the oil system, lifters and the rest of the valve train.....What will doing a compression test tell me about the lifters and oil system?

Do you have access to a leak down gauge or compression gauge? These will check if you have bent valves...I'm still a little suspect of your valve lash setting procedure.

Roll the motor over until you see an exhaust valve start to open--- at this time adjust the intake valve lash.
Continue to roll the motor over until that same intake valve is on its closing sweep and adjust the exhaust valve lash. Continue this procedure for the rest of the cylinders.

The lifters are loosing pressure for some odd reason.These things sure can humble you sometimes.  

Ah what the hell I might as well throw my wild ass guess in here. I say lifter bores.

Lifter bores? Not following you? What could be wrong with the lifter bores and what problem would it cause?

Lifter bores? Not following you? What could be wrong with the lifter bores and what problem would it cause?

Ok let me see if I can explain a little about Hydraulic Rollers vs Flat( solid or Hyd) and solid rollers lifters.

Average flat and solid rollers have a pushrod seat height of 2.05 inches. Hydraulic rollers have a seat height of 2.75 inches. That is almost 3/4 inch difference.

Means shorter pushrods AND increase the angle of pushrods. This increased angle places additional side loading on the lifters. It also effects the alignment of the pushrod to rocker.

The side loading could cause excessive wear in the lifter bores making them egg shaped. This increases the clearance between the lifter and the bore causing weak oil pressure to the lifters while not effecting the overall oil pressure. I will bet you used a high volume oil pump too. If you did it is not needed.

Also you need to inspect the pushrod pockets of the rocker arm for unusual wear or ridges. Check the pushrod guide plates or the pushrods for wear or ridges on the tips.

You need to re-think your cam and lifter choice. Cut that oil filter open with a pipe cutter or oil filter cutter. Inspect those lifter bores.

There are others here more knowledgeable than me on WHY NOT to use hydraulic roller lifters in a BBF. If I am way off base on my thoughts I hope they chime in to correct me.

Do the valve tips and retainers/locks look OK?

SandHillsHillbilly wrote:Ok let me see if I can explain a little about Hydraulic Rollers vs Flat( solid or Hyd) and solid rollers lifters.

Average flat and solid rollers have a pushrod seat height of 2.05 inches. Hydraulic rollers have a seat height of 2.75 inches. That is almost 3/4 inch difference.

Means shorter pushrods AND increase the angle of pushrods. This increased angle places additional side loading on the lifters. It also effects the alignment of the pushrod to rocker.

The side loading could cause excessive wear in the lifter bores making them egg shaped. This increases the clearance between the lifter and the bore causing weak oil pressure to the lifters while not effecting the overall oil pressure. I will bet you used a high volume oil pump too. If you did it is not needed.

Also you need to inspect the pushrod pockets of the rocker arm for unusual wear or ridges. Check the pushrod guide plates or the pushrods for wear or ridges on the tips.

You need to re-think your cam and lifter choice. Cut that oil filter open with a pipe cutter or oil filter cutter. Inspect those lifter bores.

There are others here more knowledgeable than me on WHY NOT to use hydraulic roller lifters in a BBF. If I am way off base on my thoughts I hope they chime in to correct me.

I understand what you're saying and it totally makes sense. I've heard other guys say the same thing about pushrod angle on a BBF. However, I've had this engine built for over a year now (even though I still have less than 1000 miles on it) and I've spent way more money on this engine than planned, so I'm not going to swap parts at this stage of the game. I'm going to use the parts I already have, even if they're not ideal. In the mean time, I just need to get the engine up and running again so I can go on my next camping trip in 3 weeks.

So here's an update on what I've done the past couple days. First of all my goal was to try to figure out the problem without opening up the engine and if I still can't figure out the problem, then I'll open it up and look for internal problems. So given all the advice by you guys on here and a couple guys outside this site, I decided to start with testing for the issue of the engine sucking air into the oil system and consequently the lifters (my engine was 2 quarts low on oil and I was on a 6% incline when the problem occurred; all 16 rocker arms were loose). Given the situation and scenario of what happen when the problem occurred, the possibility of the engine sucking air into the engine made the most logical sense to me. And I could test and attempt to resolve this issue without opening up the engine and spending more money on gaskets and parts.

So what I did last night was loosen all the rocker arms so they were sloppy loose (per advice I was given). Then I took a drill and primed the oil system until oil was coming up through all the rocker arms (however, the rocker arms on the #8 cylinder barely had any oil coming out of it, where all the other rocker arms had plenty of oil coming out of them). (My goal was to pump up the lifters completely with oil AND to get all the air out of the lifters). Then I let the lifters set over night and all day today. When I got home tonight, I primed the oil system again then I tightened all the rocker arms with 1/2 turn of preload (per everyone's advice. I had them preloaded with one full turn, which hasn't been a problem so far). Then I put the distributor back in and the valve covers on, fired up the engine. The engine fired up and ran and it even idled, which it wouldn't do when the problem occurred. However, the engine was popping through the exhaust randomly, which made me believe the timing was off. When I checked the timing, it was at 8 degrees, so I adjusted the timing to 12-13 degrees. The engine popping noise seemed to go away. However, I have a real loud lifter tapping noise coming from one or both of the rocker arms on the #8 cylinder. I also noticed a very mild lifter tapping coming from one or two other rocker arms, but can't tell which ones. So I'm not sure if the #8 rocker arm(s) still have air in their lifters or for some reason the lifters aren't pumping up with oil. I'm also not sure if I should tighten the rocker arms another 1/4 turn or not, hoping it might eliminate the rocker arm tapping (they were at 1 full turn before with no lifter noise at all).

So it seems that because the engine was low on oil and on a 6% incline, it sucked air into the oil system and the lifters, which is why all the rocker arms seemed to have loosened up. It wasn't actually the rocker arms loosening, but the lifters getting air in them and not pumping all the way up. But I'm not quite sure what to do about the noisy rocker arm(s).

maverick wrote:Do the valve tips and retainers/locks look OK?

Yes, they look good.

Someone had mentioned to put a quart of transmission fluid in the oil and let the engine idle for a while and it would help unstick the lifters if they are stuck. Although I don't believe the #8 lifter to be "stuck" (this engine has less than 1000 miles on it and every part in this engine is brand new and the oil is still clear), but rather it still has air in it, I gave the tranny fluid a shot anyway thinking it may help. So I did that tonight. I poured a quart of Type F tranny fluid in the oil and fired up the truck and let it idle for about 10 minutes.

One thing I noticed is the engine started smoking light blue smoke real bad. It wasn't so bad at idle, but when I revved up the engine it got really bad. I assume this is because of the transmission fluid in the oil? Is the tranny fluid burning off? I assume this will disappear when I change the oil?

Anyway, the lifter is still "ticking" really bad and isn't getting any better. How long should I let the engine run in this condition? Should I take the distributor back out and loosen the valves and prime the system again? Or should I run it some more and adjust the lifters with the engine running??? Not sure how long to run the motor before the lifter noise starts getting better. Then engine is running just a tad rough, but not too noticeable. Maybe this is because of the lifter issue??? What'cha guys think?

I would not try reving the engine up with transmission fluid in the oil if it smoking white the oil and transmission fluid is getting by the rings. You can prime the lifter without loosing the rocker just pull the dizzy and run the drill for a few mins then bump the engine over to move the rocker arms some and run the drill some more until the oil looks clear. If the oil still has air in it you pick up tube might have a crack and letting it suck air in the oil .

69F100 wrote:I would not try reving the engine up with transmission fluid in the oil if it smoking white the oil and transmission fluid is getting by the rings. You can prime the lifter without loosing the rocker just pull the dizzy and run the drill for a few mins then bump the engine over to move the rocker arms some and run the drill some more until the oil looks clear. If the oil still has air in it you pick up tube might have a crack and letting it suck air in the oil .

Duly noted. I won't rev the engine anymore. I did prime the lifters by pulling the dizzy and using a drill; however, I didn't rotate the engine when I did this. I did this the first time without loosening the rocker arms (I was just trying to verify there weren't any oil passages blocked and oil was getting to the top of the engine, which it was), then the next two times I primed it with the rockers loose. But I might try rotating the engine when priming the engine, like you suggested. Question, what does rotating the engine when priming the oil system do that not rotating it won't do? In other words, what's the benefit of rotating the engine?

Someone else mentioned the pickup tube might have a crack in it. That's why I tested for air in the system. However, I now only have one lifter that is ticking really bad. The rest of the lifters seem to be fine now (after priming the system). If the pickup tube had a crack in it and was still sucking air, all of my lifters would still be full of air and the engine wouldn't run....correct? So if I only have one lifter giving me problems now, doesn't that tell me that the pickup tube doesn't have a crack in it and that the original cause was I was low on oil and on a 6% incline?

Thanks for your input. It is appreciated...

After another guy listened to a short video of the engine running and hearing the "ticking" lifter, he suggested that it's making way too much noise and that I should probably remove the intake and inspect the lifters.

So I pulled off the intake today and removed both #7 & #8 lifters and inspected them. I didn't see anything externally wrong. There wheel still spun freely, didn't see any cracks anywhere in the lifter body, and the plunger cup (that the pushrod sets on top of) was all the way up against the lock ring in the top of the lifter body. However, I didn't take it apart. However, if I were to take it apart, I wouldn't know what I'm looking for. I've never had a lifter apart before.

I primed the oil system again and there's oil flowing to all the lifters....I'm at a loss. Not sure what to do at this point....I'm tempted to order two new pair of lifters (Lunati tie bar lifters for #7 & #8 cylinders only), but I will hold off until I hear from you (or someone)...Thanks for the advice...

UPDATE.....ok, I just pulled the #8 lifters out of the engine and attempted to take them apart. I got the lock ring out, but I can't get any of the internal components out of the body of the lifter and here's why. I have Lunati "tie-bar" lifters. The intake and exhaust lifters are connected together with a "tie-bar" or "link bar". This bar is held on with a rivot. Since the back side of the rivot is withing the inside of the lifter body, I can't slide the plunger or anything else past the rivot. So I can't take them apart. So I guess the only thing I can do is buy new lifters, install them and see what happens. Really bummed about it because they're not cheap and I was hoping to figure out which lifter was giving me issues. But I guess I don't have a choice.

On the positive side of this disappointing adventure, I don't have to remove the head to get the lifters out. Some engines there isn't that much clearance and you have to remove the head to get the lifters out, but on this engine there is enough room. So I'm thankful that I don't have to spend additional time and money on head and header gaskets. Another thing I'm thankful for is everyone on here who has offered their advice. So I guess it could be worse. The bad thing is I won't get the lifters for about 2-3 weeks. It won't even ship until 6/17/14. Oh well, nothing I can do about it....

Any update?

Skinny chicken wrote:Any update?

Actually, yes I do have an update....Someone gave me another website to order the lifters from (race-mart.com), who actually had them in stock and shipped them right away. So I received my lifters last week and got them installed. However, the bad news is the lifter I thought was the bad one actually wasn't the bad one. So after further and more accurate investigation I have discovered it sounds like the bad lifter is either the #5 or #6 lifter (but can't tell exactly since one of the two lifters I suspect are right next to each other). Since I purchased 2 pair of lifters (4 total), I'll take the new lifters and put them in the #5 & #6 cylinder lifter bores and put the original #7 & #8 lifters back since they are still good. However, since we're camping right now and won't be home till Saturday, I won't get to work on this until at least Sunday, if my intake gasket arrives by then. I'm pretty confident that once I swap these lifters, my problem will be solved. But knowing my luck, I'm not holding my breath...LOL. When I get the lifters swapped out, I'll post an update....

Update......Still having the "ticking" noise. I have replaced the intake & exhaust lifters in 6, 7, & 8 cylinders (originally thought it was #8, but wasn't sure so I bought new lifters for #7 & #8 just to be sure). But after doing a more accurate investigation, the noise is definitely coming from either #5 or #6, but with #6 having new lifters, that leaves #5, but who knows.

A neighbor seems to think either the cam lobe is wiped out or a bad cam or rod bearing or lose rod cap, but I'm not convinced of this theory being that it's a roller cam; the noise is coming from the top of the engine; it's a "ticking" sound not a "knocking" sound; I have 75 lbs of oil pressure and oil is getting all the way up to the rocker arms.

A friend suggested I take the valve cover off and run the engine and use the stethoscope to pinpoint exactly which lifter was giving me problems so I cut open a stock valve cover I had laying around, but then discovered that the rocker arms hit the valve cover, which I remembered is the reason I had to buy tall valve covers in the first place. So I can't even do this. So then I put a mechanic's stethoscope on each header pipe and each intake runner and I don't hear any more of a ticking noise out of one than the other, so I can't pinpoint exactly which lifter is giving me problems.

By logic and process of elimination, it seems it has to be #5 lifters since the rest are new, but I'm at a loss. I'm starting to wonder if it's a lifter at all. Could it be something else, like a broken valve spring or something else in the valve train? If it is something else, it doesn't make sense to me. When the cause of the problem happened (sucked air into the oil pump and into the lifters because of being 2 quarts low on oil and on a 6% incline), ALL the rocker arms were loose because there was air in the lifters, not oil. So when I got the truck home, put more oil in it, primed the lifters and adjusted the rocker arms, the engine run just fine except that now I have a loud ticking noise coming from the #5 or #6 rocker arm area.

I don't want to keep throwing money at this until I know exactly where the problem is. I attempted to attach a short 10 second video of the engine running, but it seems the file is too big to attach....hmm, how do I do this?

Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm stuck and don't know what to do from here....

I think you need to pinpoint the bad parts/s with the stethoscope method, even if you have to spill a little bit of oil in the process. Without a valve cover, it probably won't toss too much oil if it's only idled long enough to accurately nail down the noise. Then I'd swap the suspected lifter, pushrod and rocker arm to another cylinder, and vice versa, to see if the noise travels with the parts. If it does, your problem is up top and easy to fix. If not, your trouble is deeper, most likely in the oiling system, but possibly on a lobe.

If this doesn't help, be sure to roll it out of the garage before you burn it.  

maverick wrote:I think you need to pinpoint the bad parts/s with the stethoscope method, even if you have to spill a little bit of oil in the process.  Without a valve cover, it probably won't toss too much oil if it's only idled long enough to accurately nail down the noise. Then I'd swap the suspected lifter, pushrod and rocker arm to another cylinder, and vice versa, to see if the noise travels with the parts.  If it does, your problem is up top and easy to fix.  If not, your trouble is deeper, most likely in the oiling system, but possibly on a lobe.

If this doesn't help, be sure to roll it out of the garage before you burn it.  

They way my day is going today, I'm voting for burning it!!! ....LOL. Seriously though, I guess I don't have a choice but to spill some oil and use the stethoscope on the rocker arm studs and see what turns up.

You mentioned if the problem is deeper, it might be in the oiling system and/or possibly a lobe......I have a roller cam and 75 lbs of oil pressure. How in the world could the lobe be damaged on a roller cam? What exactly would the damage be? If it was a flat tappet cam and lifter, I'd be willing to bet I wiped out a cam lobe, but since it's a roller cam, that's nearly impossible....isn't it?

Regarding the oil system, what do you think the problem could be; especially with 75 lbs of oil pressure? I've had this much oil pressure since the engine was built and no problems. There is oil getting up to all the rocker arms, so what could be the problem? If I had a spun cam bearing, I wouldn't be getting oil up top....would I? Plus the oil pressure would be higher.....wouldn't it? Can you be a little more specific as to exactly what could be wrong with the oil system or cam?