Trying to revive a sleeping midget

[Rick the Quick]

Good to see that it's running. Now that you have driven it it would be interesting to see what the compression is. Be careful trying to flush the crankcase. If you knock a bunch of crud loose that it a great way to clog the pick up screen on your oil pump pick up. Personally I wouldn't add anymore than a quart of ATF to the crankcase. Drive it around town at low speeds for a day, drain it, replace the oil filter and change the oil. This should free the stuck lifters. If it doesn't they will probably need replacing. A new pcv valve would be a good idea. If you are bothered by a bunch of crud in the crankcase pull the oil pan and clean it out. The sludge will clear up on its own to a degree if you change oil and filter frequently. Flushing the engine and knocking a bunch of crud loose can be risky. I know the procedure : flush and drain. The only problem is that when you drain the oil there may be a bunch of crap that doesn't come out because it isn't quite ready to be released. It usually comes off at a later date and plugs your screen. Ask me how I know....LOL. When I was young I owned many a 60's era car and back in the 1970's when they were 10+ years old most all of those cars had engines that were full of sludge like you would not believe. Obviously not good but on the other hand they usually ran fine until you opened them up and knocked it loose. Find yourself a shallow creek and look how clear the water is. Throw a rock in and see how much dirt you jarred loose. The dirt was always there but you didn't notice it until you jarred it loose. It's about the same in your engine. As for your top speed of 60, even my '93 with a worn engine (lots of sludge from the idiot previous owner) would easily peg the speedo at 85. It sounds like you have timing issues. The cam timing may be off a tooth or two. How is your ignition timing? If you don't have a timing light you can advance the distributor to where it pings when you make it pull hard, such as 25 mph in 3rd and then giving it full throttle. Retard it in small increments until you don't get the pinging. That should get your timing where it needs to be. Let us know what your compression readings are after you drive it a little bit more. Now that you have wheels keep an eye out for a B6 engine. It will be cheaper then rebuilding yours and they are fairly easy to swap in. Some like a B6 sohc/8 valve are almost plug and play. The B6ME and the B6D are a bit more difficult but will make for a big performance improvement while not making a noticeable difference in gas mileage.

[Solmangrundy]

I used a shop vaccum on what i could as far as getting oil sludge out goes. So far im on oil change #2. Used a GUNK brand engine flush and added Marvel Myster Oil to my oil 1qtMMO/4qt oil. So far the oil light hasnt came on, and i've burned through about 5gal so far doing laps around the community driving 35-50mph. Pretty much just changing the oil as soon as i see it getting dirty.

Thermostat gauge sits really low, but my thermo gun says its about 160-170f on the surface.

Lifters still tickin.

Check engine light went off after i got the muffler mounted on properly.

Engine now surges at idle when warmed up, guessing thats a vaccum leak from the throttle body as the gasket was pretty much disintegrated when i removed it to free the valves.

Starting to think the lifters i have are a lost cause as far as getting rid of that "tick" noise and will need to be changed out, will see if anything changes throughout the week as i drive it around.

[Rick the Quick]

There is a good chance that your thermostat was a contributing factor in the sludge that's in your engine. Your thermostat should open around 195 degrees. Engines that don't get hot enough have a problem burning the condensation that forms when your engine cools. The condensation actually evaporates when your engine gets up to the normal operating temperature. If it doesn't evaporate it will eventually mix with your oil and form sludge. If you run a 170 thermostat as a lot of folks did in the "old days" and your driving is mostly short trips at low speeds it will cause this mess.

[Solmangrundy]

Replaced the thermostat today, discovered that there never was a thermostat installed it had been removed and left out, and the drain plug on the raidiator had been lost and plugged up with what i suspect is JB weld. Or it broke off at the threads, im hoping its just broke. Radiator and inside the thermostat housing was pretty clean suprisingly.

Currently getting by, by removing the bottom hose to flush/drain, and installed a flush-kit T at the heater core inlet hose (hose nearest to passenger side)

If anyone wants to install their own flush T, i recommend removing the hose, cut it, then boil the ends for a minute or 2 that your trying to connect, makes the rubber expand and get soft, then the connector T will slide right on with some hand soap.

[Solmangrundy]

Update: changed out the valve cover gasket, put in new lifters.

Rocker arm on #4 cylinder intake side had a big chip taken out of it on the shoe, lifter was pretty much dead. Will replace that one and re-check these new ones in the process. As far as lifter noise, doesnt seem to have changed anything after putting new ones in.

[firebush357]

Update: changed out the valve cover gasket, put in new lifters.

Rocker arm on #4 cylinder intake side had a big chip taken out of it on the shoe, lifter was pretty much dead. Will replace that one and re-check these new ones in the process. As far as lifter noise, doesnt seem to have changed anything after putting new ones in.

Did you prime the lifters before putting them in?

You might want to check the oil passages that feed the lifters to make sure they are not blocked or something.

[blueballs]

it looks like one set of rocker arms is broken. the front ones on the left side.

[Solmangrundy]

Yes one of them did have a chunk taken out of the shoe.

Ended up just replacing the entire set of lifters and rocker arms for new NOS ones I found. Quietened the knocking noise down a bunch. Its still there, but atleast now I can hold a conversation with the person taking my order at a drive through.

Probably would've quietened down even more if I had installed a new camshaft.

From all the videos I've seen the ticking is pretty much normal and always there, but damn I could hear my car inside the house when it was idling outside it was so ticky.