Hey guys. Got some bad news about my new 408. It seems that I may have had a lifter collapse. I have some pretty shitty luck with engines in this 71!!! A lot of you know the story behind my multiple bad engines. This doesn't seem to be very bad and I don't believe there is any damage, other than a collapsed lifter.
I pulled the car out for its first drive of the spring the other day. It ran fine. Drove it to work. Around town a little, nothing crazy. I did hear what I thought was a header leak or valve tap. I stopped at the auto parts store and got everything to do an oil change for the new driving season. Put the car up on jack stand, changed oil, all looked good. Wasn't even dirty. No metal, no shavings, nothing. All good. Looked over the entire exhaust system. Checked every nut and bolt, zero leaks. Started the motor, crawled around under the car no sounds nothing. Still some tapping coming from the passenger side. I shut it down, pulled both valve covers and checked everything out. I found #3 intake valve rocker very loose. All others looked fine. The moly lock and set screw were still tight and set, but the rocker tip had almost and 1/8" gap from the roller to the valve tip. NO GOOD! About the only thing I can think of is the lifter collapsed or its stuck in the down position. I can turn the motor over and the lifter moves up and down in the lifter bore nicely. No damage to the valve tip, no damage to the rocker arm, pushrod, spring, all look good. Just an excessive amount of play in the adjustment of the rocker arm. Since the set screw and nut were still tight the only thing I can think of is bad lifter. What do you guys think??? I m going to head down the machine shop that built my motor after work today and talk to them about it. Kinda sucks this motor has maybe 2500 miles on and probably not even that! So I may be ordering a new pair of lifters and pulling my intake, F*CK! Not the way I wanted to start the summer out! But as long as it didn't hurt anything im ok with that!
I pulled the car out for its first drive of the spring the other day. It ran fine. Drove it to work. Around town a little, nothing crazy. I did hear what I thought was a header leak or valve tap. I stopped at the auto parts store and got everything to do an oil change for the new driving season. Put the car up on jack stand, changed oil, all looked good. Wasn't even dirty. No metal, no shavings, nothing. All good. Looked over the entire exhaust system. Checked every nut and bolt, zero leaks. Started the motor, crawled around under the car no sounds nothing. Still some tapping coming from the passenger side. I shut it down, pulled both valve covers and checked everything out. I found #3 intake valve rocker very loose. All others looked fine. The moly lock and set screw were still tight and set, but the rocker tip had almost and 1/8" gap from the roller to the valve tip. NO GOOD! About the only thing I can think of is the lifter collapsed or its stuck in the down position. I can turn the motor over and the lifter moves up and down in the lifter bore nicely. No damage to the valve tip, no damage to the rocker arm, pushrod, spring, all look good. Just an excessive amount of play in the adjustment of the rocker arm. Since the set screw and nut were still tight the only thing I can think of is bad lifter. What do you guys think??? I m going to head down the machine shop that built my motor after work today and talk to them about it. Kinda sucks this motor has maybe 2500 miles on and probably not even that! So I may be ordering a new pair of lifters and pulling my intake, F*CK! Not the way I wanted to start the summer out! But as long as it didn't hurt anything im ok with that!
Last edited by a moderator: