Postby Murff » Wed Aug 06, 2008 10:35 pm
The devil lurks in my garage.
So yesterday I fired the car up to test the MSD mag/tach signal converter (works) and the engine started climbing in rpm's, got to 5K and I shut it down. Took about 20 - 30 seconds for the revs to go up.
Checked throttle cable since that was the last thing I had touched, it was taut but not tight, Nothing binding, springs attached, hmmm. Fired it up again, same thing. Phooey. Pulled the hat and upper intake, found a gasket between upper and lower intake that was suspect. Since the symptoms seemed like a vacuum leak I thought AHA, Gotcha! Put it all back together last night but it was too late to test it.
Get home from work tonight, squirt some gas, fires up fairly easily. Idle is still a bit high, around 2500 but steady, not rising. I'm listening to the engine and I hear a bit of a tickety-tickety, random not rythmic. Ok, oil is ready to be changed anyway and probably time to readjust the valves.
Shut down, put it back into the garage and I pull the passenger side valve cover. Imagine my surprise (horror actually) to see both #1 rockers laying there doing nothing but maybe bothering #2 intake. Not good. Exhaust pushrod is up in the area it should be considering there was no rocker for it to run against, but the intake pushrod was just peeking up out of the head. Really not good.
Off comes the hat, intake etc. I find 1st that #1 chamber is full of methanol. Oh crap, bent rod. Then I realizes that no, the engine didn't lock because the valves weren't opening. Suck the alky out with the wife's turkey baster and continue to pull adapter plates and galley cover. #1 intake roller lifter is out of the bore and the pushrod is on the cam lobe.
It's the special moments like these that really make me miss the 70's and recreational narcotics.
Pretty sure I know how this happened, and once again I am my own devil. For some reason known only to my personal demon, I installed the galley cover, adapter plates and intake BEFORE I installed the pushrods. I think I must have missed the lifter cup and had the pushrod on the edge of the lifter when I set the lash. I noticed a bit of a miss on the initial fire up but again it wasn't regular, and I thought the throttle response was a bit lazy, too. Now I know the why of both.
So at this point I am out two pushrods, two Howards rockers, one pair of Howards lifters, and a custom grind cam, and gaskets of course. I am going to inspect it all very closely, but I believe the aggressive disassembly just occurred today as I can actually count the pocks in the cam from the pushrod. Cursory inspection of the lifters only showed scuffing on the sides, but they will get replaced.
All things considered, it could have been much worse. And, it ran pretty well for a 7 cylinder small block Ford.
This is one of those story's I would rather not tell, but wtf, I'm human. My attitude is good, me and the Missus are both disappointed but again, it could have been worse. I could beat myself up over this but that's what the internet is for. Others can beat me up for me.
I will order replacement parts in the coming weeks and do it all over again. And I will do my best, again.
See ya in the spring.
Murff