Bought a Ride recently with a mid ‘60’s BB Mopar. Supposedly rebuilt many years ago then owner died shortly after & kids left sit in garage. I drained all fluids pulled plugs sprayed lub in cylinders let marinate put new coolant, new fuel line, temporary gas container, a fairly fresh carb, fresh plugs, wires & oil. Spun the engine up a few time w ignition off then turned on & it fired up. It had good oil pressure so I let it run for a 1/2 hour with no smoke, stayed within heat range. I noticed intermittent roughness coming from left bank only, had good spark to all plugs. Figured it was probably sticky lifters. I put typical super lub additives in oil to see if it would help & have been driving! Runs great for a bit, then the roughness, then good, back & forth. Sometime when rough stalls @ idle. Roughness always only from left bank. Any suggestions to free sticky lifters w some kind of additive? Was thinking maybe Liquid Molly lifter additive? Slick 59 & Marvel Mystic didn’t help.
Non-adjustable rockers on oem Mopar B&RB. Define 'sticky lifters'. Are they tick-tick-ticking? What do the plugs look like? I'd be checking quality of the plug wires. Points or electronic ignition?
Sticky lifters usually stick when the valve opens and makes a lot of clacking noise. If they should stick with the lifter plunger at the top the piston would hit the valve. Not good at all. I don't think your problem is with the lifters if it's not making noise. First thing I would check is the ignition system. Leaky plug wires, plugs that won't fire under pressure, cracks or carbon tracking in the dist cap, carbon tracking or cracks in the coil tower. You don't say what year this engine is. Does it have electronic ignition or points and condenser? The electronic pickups in these can go bad and cause all kinds of baffling symptoms. Do a compression check. Check the plug wires in the dark, engine running. If the wires leak to ground or other wires you will see it if you look closely. Looks like little lightning bolts.
Add a large bottle of Marvel Mystery Oil. Drive 500 or so miles dump oil and filter. Refill oil as normal but add MMO as directed on the bottle. Continued use will lightly clean the internals of the engine. The above mentioned comment can/will divide the group reading this but I swear by it. I worked at a shop in my youth that maintained fleet vehicles and was introduced to MMO then. These were used and abused company trucks. 40 years later it has its purpose and is widely available.
Some answers to your questions: Spark plugs & wires new. Distributor is stock non- E-type w new points, plugs, condenser, rotor & cap. tough to hear any engine noise a glass packs are very loud. Plugs in positions 1 & 7 a bit dark, I suspect those r the sticky lifters. Seems to make sense as when rough you hear & can feel it in exhaust only on left bank. I have MMOT in oil. Was thinking pore some in carb while running @ slightly raised rpm or same w MMOT?
Early 80s bought a full size 1973 Oldsmobile with a 455 2 barrel for $300.00, owner said it had been sitting a long time and he was told it needed new lifters by our local dealer @ $500.00. Drove it home slow and dropped the hot oil then removed the valve covers one side at a time to pour the hot oil in to reach the lifter valley asap. Got lucky and every one went quiet Drove this car as a winter beater for 2 years untill my buddy that wanted it and offered what I paid.
Would it be possible things took a set, sitting unused for a long time? Marvel mystery oil. An old timer mopar guy told me to loosen the rocker arm shafts on engines sitting unused over the winter
If it is sticky lifters I have had good luck with Rislone. Not sure what’s in it and there are probably home grown lubes that will work as well.
MMO can take some time to creep into everything. Make sure it gets up to temperature, drive it around town if possible.
I doubt that you have sticky lifters. I'm more inclined to believe you may have one or two valves that aren't closing completely from time to time. While you will get a lot of advise on how you can free them up by running this or that down the intake, that rarely works because the valves stick in the guides and what you run down the intake doesn't get to where the problem is. I'd pull the valve covers and bump the engine over with the starter and see if you can identify the problem valves. At cranking speed you may be able to see them not closing all the way. Once you identify the valves, get the offending cylinder on TDC, use air to hold the valves closed and remove the spring. Clamp a small vise grip on the very top of the valve, remove the air, spray penetrating oil around the top of the guide and work the valve up and down. Keep spraying and working until the valve moves freely. Put everything back together and you should be good to go until a different valve decides to stick in the guide. The real way to fix the problem is to pull the heads and have them serviced by a competent machine shop. I should mention that I have seen badly worn valve guides that allow the valve to rock sideways and not seat properly all the time. I've not seen that problem on BB Mopar's, but it is possible.
My question do you hear valve noise when running rough? If a valve sticks you will hear clicking until the lifter pumps up at an idle.
One quick and easy check is to wait until its dark and then open your hood and look for any intermittant sparks jumping ocassionally and wiggle the plug wires ( with some insulated pliers).
Don’t think so but w seasoned loud glass packs hard to tell. I’m pretty sure the problem is in the Valve train from sitting so long. It’s always intermittent, only from one bank, as Ekimneirbo suggested & I’ve checked when 1st notice, no arching in the dark, gotta b sticky valve guide, valve not always closing, problem hydraulic lifters. Was trying to avoid pulling heads by using some kinda valve train unstick juice, . Ordered some liquid Molly valve lifter stuff. If doesn’t fix will start mechanical breakdown. Thx all
I would try putting a cylinder at TDC so the valve won't drop and removing the valve spring to check if the valve is sticking. If it is chucking the valve stem in a drill spin it while using somthing like WD40 in the stem with the seal removed.
Any way to set the valvetrain on these, never worked in these engines. You already have "goop" in it - Let it work. If Driving is possible, would get different loads on it, versus high idle light load.
No rocker adjustment on oem B&RB engines unless someone has installed mech rockers or adjustable pushrods. Yes, with a load of 'something' in the crankcase it should be allowed to work its way in to the small places. There are plenty of 'secret' formulaes that have used/touted over the decades so there are options if, indeed, the lifters are the issue.
I’ve never heard of a lifter sticking up,,,,,it might collapse a little which will cause ticking and then pump back up . It could be a guide,,,,,,you never know . Mopar is not known for this though,,,,,,very rarely have guide problems . It could possibly be some carbon build up around a valve head and causing the valve to not seat intermittently ? Unless it had some guides repaired at the rebuild time and they were not installed correctly . I have seen liners move down in the guide and get against the valve head before,,,that could possibly be causing an intermittent miss I assume . I still can’t imagine how you are certain it is from the left bank though,,,,without some other indicators . Tommy
I'm curious how you can tell that the roughness is only coming from the left bank. Until confirmed by a compression test, I would suspect fuel or ignition before lifters.
One other thought. I assume dual exhaust is how you are telling it is missing on one side. That would also seem to indicate that its an exhaust valve train issue since nothing is coming back out of the intake. Maybe remove the valve cover when its missing and see what you can tell. Also remove the plug wires one at a time on that side and see if it goes away or changes. If you can identify the valve/ valves responsible, then maybe put an inspection camera in and try to look at the valve. Now it could be a lifter or even a guide. If you use one of those tools for removing the valve spring with the head on the engine, you can hand check the valve to see if it moves up and down and rotates easily. I would also take a look at your spark plugs,(even though you replaced them) just to see if any of them look different from the others. Thats about all I can think of. If you can identify the cause, maybe we can help further. Good Luck with it.........
Reporting back. I know it’s been a while but I don’t drive the car much as I’m lucky enough to have several that all look & run great. But I have put s couple hundred miles on it with all the loosening stuff in the oil & MM oil in the carb & smoking up the neighborhood ! Any way the Lifter / valve cleaning stuff & the slick 50 & just running it seems to have loosened all up. Runs much smoother @ startup & idle than when I reported originally! I think marinating & running it did the trick. I have noticed in the warmer weather it is overheating at lights & in traffic. Radiator looks a bit small & old although water moves pretty fast thru it. Gonna put an auxiliary electric push fan between grille & radiator Yo see if that helps.
I've used Marvel Mystery Oil in numerous old engines that have built up sludge, or have set for years, and use more than the instructions recommend for these particular engines. Then run a qt. per oil change after the engine gets quieter, and you change the oil. I also use MMO in every old vehicle I own, regardless of whether they're fresh builds, or have miles on them. It just works great. And I dump some in my gas tank on my high compression engine also to lubricate the valves, and it helps reduce detonation.
If water moves too fast through a radiator then it can easily cause overheating since the water does not have enough time to transfer heat to, and through, the radiator. Do you have a t-stat in place? And, what temp do you call 'hot'?
New Stat is installed, flow & volume look good. If electric fan working with existing pulley Fan improves cooling I’ll think about a bigger ( more rows ) radiator.
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