1979 El Camino with noisy lifters after engine is hot/
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Opie Knievel
Rum Fueled Midnight Mechanic and Moderator
I know and caught that so I altered my post, you type too fast...
If you wanna hear the bad part, I lost most of my pinkie finger and the end of my ring finger in a table saw accident 10 years ago. You got out-typed by a guy with only 8 good digits on his hands! Lol
Thanks to all of you guys with your excellent suggestions.I think I will check the headers first,than hook up a oil pressure gauge since my truck only uses a light for oil pressure sensing.What is a normal pressure reading on this 350 motor? I would think maybe 15/20 at idle and up to 60 under load.If the pressure drops after the engine is hot,would that indicate a bad oil pump or maybe bad bearings?
I will go and check the headers for leaks and than if that's ok,I will hook up a oil pressure to check if its dropping or not when hot.
I ran a compression test on all cylinders about 2 months ago and all read between 145/150lbs of pressure.
I would think that with this reading,the engine is in pretty good shape,right? Please let me know of what the oil pressure reading should be at idle and than under load.Thanks again.
Mando
I will go and check the headers for leaks and than if that's ok,I will hook up a oil pressure to check if its dropping or not when hot.
I ran a compression test on all cylinders about 2 months ago and all read between 145/150lbs of pressure.
I would think that with this reading,the engine is in pretty good shape,right? Please let me know of what the oil pressure reading should be at idle and than under load.Thanks again.
Mando
15-30 is about right. Is the pump stock? If so, you are in the ball park. Rule of thumb is 10lbs per every 1k rpm. But Chevys have decent oiling systems so you should expect to see what I mentioned hot. Cold, obviously more. Closer to 40-50. I wouldn't worry about the compression test values as of right now if you aren't getting any other symptoms other than noise. Definitely put an oil pressure gauge on it and run it and see what you have and then message me or post something here and we will go further. If the pressure does drop when hot, there could be a host of problems. However, bearing failure usually shows up like this: mains- low oil pressure and lower when hot because of viscosity loss and rods- they will knock like hell when cold and will have a "dull" knock when warmed up. Don't panic as I don't think the problem is catastrophic. Do some digging and let us know.
This is how my main bearing failure showed up. It would run fine cold, but as soon as it warmed up I would lose most of my oil pressure. I thought maybe a cam bearing but I pulled the pan during a motor swap out of curiosity and there was the head of a main bolt in the bottom of the pan!
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I assume you put on as new filter when you did the oil change, did you have this problem before you put a new oil filter on?
Dude! I built a wicked show (previous to this one) car and I had lost oil pressure while beating on it and then after new rods, balance and reassemble and install, the bearings delaminated on me and I lost oil pressure on the friggin dyno! check please......
Thanks Guys. Well, after doing the oil pressure test when cold and than after engine was hot,it all checked out ok.oil pump is working ok.Had 50psi of oil going down the road,never dropped below that.
I got me a mechanics stethoscope and put it over the valve cover and I can hear the lifters rattle pretty good.Only on the driver side,the passenger side lifters are quiet.Now,should I try a can of eighter mystery oil or a can of seafoam and see if that stops the noise or should I remove the valve cover and try to adjust the lifters? I don't really want to remove the valve cover cause I would have to remove the AC brackets and AC compressor to get the cover off.I just put a new AC system in this truck,since it had nothing on it other than the accumulator and it was a job putting all that together.But,if I have to,I will remove all that to get the valve cover off and do the adjustments.Again,thanks to all of you with your kind help.
Mando
I got me a mechanics stethoscope and put it over the valve cover and I can hear the lifters rattle pretty good.Only on the driver side,the passenger side lifters are quiet.Now,should I try a can of eighter mystery oil or a can of seafoam and see if that stops the noise or should I remove the valve cover and try to adjust the lifters? I don't really want to remove the valve cover cause I would have to remove the AC brackets and AC compressor to get the cover off.I just put a new AC system in this truck,since it had nothing on it other than the accumulator and it was a job putting all that together.But,if I have to,I will remove all that to get the valve cover off and do the adjustments.Again,thanks to all of you with your kind help.
Mando
Unfortunately you will have to go further if you wanna find the noise. I would pull the cover on the ds and check it. Let me ask you something: no backfiring or miss under load? More on that later. A guy that I work for now whom I respect very much said this: we have to do something even if it's wrong. That said, turn over all the stones. You will find your answer. Message me for more help as I am here to.
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