Springfield, Missouri - HELP? limping through

I am driving my 61 Bonneville from Minnesota to Southern California (via Chicago) on Route 66. Everything is going well except my valves started making some noise. All the vitals are good, driving well, but it the valves are making a lot of noise. I'm afraid a nut is backing off a rocker. Harland Sharp roller rockers with allen adjustment inside jam nut.

Motor stays cool, oil pressure good.

I arrived in Springfield tonight. I am meeting someone first thing in the morning (not car related). I am looking for a HAMB member that might be able to make room for me at about 10-11am tomorrow to pull rocker covers for a peek and adjustment. Couple borrowed tools would help: breaker bar with 15/16 socket to turn crank and I'm embarrassed to say I don't think I have the allen wrench needed.

Anyone?

 

bumping it for some help here

 

some stuff at HF should get you going cheeply

 

hit a autozone or pep boys, advanced etc....how fresh is motor?

 

re bump

 

I'm a few hours north of Springfield in Essex Illinois. I'm only a couple miles of of Route 66 in the Wilmington area. I will gladly help you out.




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Look up Rhino here on tne hamb he has a nice shop just north of joplin, He might be able to help,

 

thanks.

i picked up the tools and gasket maker i needed tonight to adjust rockers. it will probably be easiest to do this in the hotel lot in the morning when the motor is cool.

hopefully it's not something more serious, then i'll need some real help lifters are the retro fit hydraulic rollers - i really don't want to pull intake and valley pan. or pull motor. or...

i'll update.

 

it's fre$h - 4,300 miles.

 

Rockers were fine.

When it starts cold it ticks four times right after start then stops ticking at idle rpm. Rev it then it will tick.

I think a lifter is bleeding down and idle rpm it can recover fast enough but faster rpm it is not recovering. Comp cams Hyd roller lifters. Grrr. This is a bigger job and mail order parts.

Behavior and gauges haven't changed or become worse for 800 miles. I am rolling with it. Keeping revs under 2300. Risk of catastrophe seems low. Might need new valve guides tho.

Beautiful day.

 

I'm glad your back on the road. Enjoy your trip.




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you running short travel lifters or regular retros...? spring pressure might be hurting ya...

 

I arrived to new home in Santa Barbara, car is in garage. BUT - things did not end well on the road trip.

brandon - lifters are regular retros, but the combo is from a top end recipe that is pretty well tried.

The bleeding lifter ticked when motor warmed up or revved. This went on for a long time. My last day was scheduled for 1200 miles from Amarillo. Big day. After I crossed the California border past Needles, the lifter fully collapsed and it made a horrible noise. On the side of the highway in the Mojave desert, I pulled covers again and found #3 exhaust rocker had no pressure on it. On the side of the road, from 9pm to 1am, I drained coolant, pulled intake and valley pan. Removed both #3 rockers and pushrods, and pulled up the lifters enough to clear cam but keep oil galley hole covered for pressure. A zip tie on the rockers on the oil ridge held them in the perfect spot. Car fired up and sounded great. Had oil pressure and kept temps fine. Funny thing was that my MPG was the highest I have ever seen since I slowed down so much and I shut down a cylinder.

Past Barstow, it started ticking again. Another lifter was bleeding down. And then another. Motor had oil pressure and temps were fine. I kept driving, I had already made it 2800 miles and only had 140 to go. I heard one collapse and when I was looking for a place to pull over it let go and there was no more motor. I could see through push rod holes that zip tied lifters were exactly where they were supposed to be (I thought zip ties might have failed). I was going to do the same thing and shut down the other cyls with bad lifters, but the crank was seized. Car needed a hook. I spent the next 2 days dealing with logistics to get the car where I was headed.

Tonight, I pulled all the rockers and push rods. Have not pulled intake yet. I think there were several lifters that failed; at least 3 rockers lost pressure (adjustment nut was still wicked tight), and I couldn't turn crank to see if there were more.

Turns out that these lifters from Comp fail. Not if but when. Comp since changed design and supplier. They warranty them, but that really doesn't do me any good right now. I need to build a new motor.

Trip was an adventure, but will be expensive in time and money to fix. I enjoyed it. Not one drop of rain. Think I will go with solid lifters next time.

 

When you rebuild that Pontiac, split your intake at the front water crossover from the main intake - youll never have to drain coolant to remove intake and access valley pan.

It would make it around a 20 minute job to access the valley pan.

I love Pontiacs - no distributor pull to remove the intake, sure makes things easy to work on them.

Sorry to hear about the motor, that really sucks. Did they put oil restrictors in the lifter bores? If they did, they shouldn't have for hydraulic roller.