Thread: 350 V8 lifter tapping, follow up details....

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Well I pulled the 4bbl manifold off of the 350 V8 engine after seeing that the lifter I kept tightening to stop the tapping noise did not have the same action as the others rocker arms. Much less up and down motion that the others. I used a 1 lb of force magnet to pull out the lifter and the bottom of the lifter was bowl shaped on the bottom, not flat, like it should be, which means the cam is probably almost round and has very little hump to push up the lifter....no telling what caused this but I bought the truck off a car lot and the heads had just been redone so maybe the rocker arm was set too tight from the start???? So new cams and new lifters all around would be the ticket I guess? THANKS FOR EVERONES HELP AND SUGGESTIONS...IT IS APPRECIATED!!!!
Thanks,
COWBOYART.NET

That suxs, oh well at least you found the sorce of the noise, So I guess it's new cam and lifter time ?

While your at it and got the heads off, check the valve seats, give the ports a clean up and put on a set of new valve springs.

Not to be a wet blanket here, but I have been thru this a few times....If you lost a cam lobe and lifter, there is a lot of metal circulating around in your engine. You may have a lot of bearing damage, and unfortunately the only way to tell is to pull it apart and look. I have seen it go both ways, but almost always it's not good. I would hate to see you put it back together just to have low oil pressure cause your bearings are shot from all the junk in there. Your oil filter caught the biggest part of it Im sure, but still a lot of it gets through. Have you drained your oil yet? When you do, drain it into a clean pan, and look for little metallic particles in the oil, Im sure you'll see what Im talking about. Let us know how you make out.

I agree with Johnny O... I just went thru the exact same thing. I had a Comp Cam go flat at 6500 miles. I was just going to replace the cam and lifters, but out of curiosity, I checked the bearings. Good thing I did, the mains were all garbage. Rods were fine tho. The crank neededto be cut, so I figured it would be a great time to buy a Scat 9000 to make it a 383 . I called Comp to see if they had a problem, he said "Not officially, but your new free cam and lifter set, along with a couple TShirts, is in the mail."
It was a fun project!

Hey, glad you made out well with Comp...they're pretty good with trying to make the customers happy...I lost two comp cams, and that's why I dont buy them anymore. I know lots of them are out there, but It's just been a bad experience for me. Geezz, they didnt offer ME a tee shirt!!

Originally posted by 1JohnnyO
Not to be a wet blanket here, but I have been thru this a few times....If you lost a cam lobe and lifter, there is a lot of metal circulating around in your engine. You may have a lot of bearing damage, and unfortunately the only way to tell is to pull it apart and look. I have seen it go both ways, but almost always it's not good. I would hate to see you put it back together just to have low oil pressure cause your bearings are shot from all the junk in there. Your oil filter caught the biggest part of it Im sure, but still a lot of it gets through. Have you drained your oil yet? When you do, drain it into a clean pan, and look for little metallic particles in the oil, Im sure you'll see what Im talking about. Let us know how you make out.

better way to find out is bring your oil filter to a small airport, they'll cut it open and run a test on it to find out how much partical count is, and what kind of metals are floating around in your oil.... its a requirment to do this everytime the oil is changed on an airplane..... and if there is a big metal count... get your engine hot oil flushed.... and if your lucky it will clean it up enough to not have any problems

No, it doesnt matter what the particle count is, or what it is...you know what it's from. No flushing out is going to help, it has to come apart is you want to avoid problems with that engine. I wasnt implying that you should see if you notice anything...I was telling you what it will look like in the oil...if you lost a lobe and lifter, you have problems, no doubt about it.

i'm going to be the odd ball here and say that cam particles shouldn't hurt your motor at all if you have a decent oil filter on it.any metal will get sucked up by the oil pump and get put in the oil filter first thing and stay there, and the oil pump is just a gear pump which can handle small debris with little damge. the only way it would get to your brgs is if you got a cheap oil filter that will only stop feathers and small rocks, or if your filter by-pass was going. if you cut your filter apart and there is metal in it dont be worried, it just means it was doing its job, i would be more concerned if you didnt find any becauce you know very well that there was metal comming off your cam. FYI i only use Fleetgaurd filters.