Engine rattle

[nitrofarm]

Just did a marathon maintaince 48 hrs with my 18 year old Son. We are moving him to college tomorrow. I had the brite idea of doing a complete front end rebuild on my Aspire. And an engine/trans swap on his Festy. Long story LONG got the Aspire done. Pulled it outside. Got the Festy done,along with new struts,axles lca's & hub rebuilds. Go to start the festy @ 6am after wrenching for what seems like eternity. Wont start.Got spark. What the heck? Doesnt seem like its getting fuel. Lots of mad scrambling & checking. wtf? Still seems fuel related but I'm getting fuel at regulator. Change reg with known good one. Still wont start.Drink a Corona,still wont start.Sounds like it wants to. Get into a heated debate about him setting cam timing. Realize he is now bigger & stronger than me. Shut my mouth,get another Corona. Kid goes to bed(very not happy mind you) I beat my head against every hard object in barn. Its got to be injectors. This motor has sat for 18 months or more.Drink one more Corona,still wont start. Put trickle charger on Battery. I'm waaay to tired and slightly buzzed to do any good. Go to bed very depressed,with a pounding headache. Wake up still depresed,and feeling like I'm getting to old to be doing this. Make a call to a Festy guru. He tells me to do everything I've done in the same order I did them . Hang up beat my head against anything hard in kitchen. Call my Guru friend again. My son come's running into the kitchen. Its running like crap. But its running he exclaims! We let it idle and idle and idle. Finally it smooths out! Must have been the injectors
Anyway now I've got lots of clatter from the engine. I'm guessing if the injectors stuck.The HLA's must be in bad shape as well. Sooooooo I want to pull valve cover & check each rocker arm. The manual tells us to push down on the rocker arm. If it moves down the HLA is bad. My question to you guys is this. Dont I want the cyl @ TDC when I check them? The manual doesnt state. It just says push down and check for squish. Thanks for taking the time to read my rant! Thomas-
FYI this is a motor that was a Ford reman. The PO got T-Boned and we got the motor for $450.00. Each cyl dry was 155-175 cold. With oil sprayed into cyl they all hit almost 200 psi cold

[Zanzer]

How long did you let it run? I did one about a month ago that had sat for a year or so. It had a wicked tick and ran like crap when I first started it up. I let her sit and run for about 20-30 minutes and it slowly cleared up and the tick went away as fresh fuel cycled through the injectors. I thought it was HLA's at first but when I leaned down over the valve cover I heard it coming from the injectors instead.

Per the HLA's - Yes, you want the valve to be closed on the HLA that is being checked. If there's any load on the HLA you won't be able to properly detect a weak one or excessive lash.

Have a Corona for me :thumbup:

[Festy46]

An easier way to check the HLA's without finding TDC for each cylinder is to just start with the first rocker arm. Rotate the engine by hand and watch for the cam lobe to open the valve. When the cam lobe is at its highest point pushing on the rocker arm, rotate the engine enough to rotate the cam 180 degrees so the cam lobe is now at the bottom. Check your HLA and repeat the sequence right down the line.

[nitrofarm]

Found the cause

This wasnt hard to find-

[neanderpaul]

Nice garage!

[nitrofarm]

How long did you let it run? I did one about a month ago that had sat for a year or so. It had a wicked tick and ran like crap when I first started it up. I let her sit and run for about 20-30 minutes and it slowly cleared up and the tick went away as fresh fuel cycled through the injectors. I thought it was HLA's at first but when I leaned down over the valve cover I heard it coming from the injectors instead.

Per the HLA's - Yes, you want the valve to be closed on the HLA that is being checked. If there's any load on the HLA you won't be able to properly detect a weak one or excessive lash.

Have a Corona for me :thumbup:

Thanks for the good advice Zanzer.We let her run almost an hour. At that point I new no amount of Sea Foam or continued idling was gonna cure it. It was so dang loud. It was depressing. And by the way I slammed a cold one with ur name on it :p

An easier way to check the HLA's without finding TDC for each cylinder is to just start with the first rocker arm. Rotate the engine by hand and watch for the cam lobe to open the valve. When the cam lobe is at its highest point pushing on the rocker arm, rotate the engine enough to rotate the cam 180 degrees so the cam lobe is now at the bottom. Check your HLA and repeat the sequence right down the line.

Thanks John,thats what I was planning to do. When I got the cover of it was @ 45 seconds till I saw the problem. Didnt even have to put a ratchet on the crank.

Nice garage!

Whats up Neander ! Its nice but I still havent perfected the Festiva car roll for Engine/Trans removal ! I watched your video and you def have that move down :naka: