valvetrain loose? what could it be...

prime your oil pump before checking your valvetrain for play. This will help you find any bad lifters.

The round 1/4 piece of debris looks to be a grommet from a valve cover gasket- be sure to account for all of these when removing your valve covers!

run a bottle of seafoam through it for about 500 miles then change the oil

BLOWN 5.0 FOX said:

The round 1/4 piece of debris looks to be a grommet from a valve cover gasket- be sure to account for all of these when removing your valve covers!

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Agreed! Make sure you account for all of them....I would know, I learned the hard way

After night of a GOOD beating around town and putting her to sleep, I start her up in the morning and I start hearing TAP TAP TAP...NO Oil pressure
Changed the filter thinking the valve inside got stuck (happened to my friends truck twice with a Fram)
Nothing, found out one of those metal rings worked its way down to my pan got sucked up to the pan and into the pump, locked up the pump twisted and snapped the stock oil pump shaft with such a clean break near the bottom where it goes in the pump. Took off my oil pan to find a pan of Glittery oil. I had to clean the pan out with brake clean soaked rags and shoving my skinny arm down to the back of the pan....with the engine jacked up the pan still wouldnt come out with the car in my apartment parking lot without it being jacked up. I put in a ARP chromoly shaft and new pump....Moral of the story, Account for all your metal rings in your gaskets or get a gasket without any of them....

valve cover grommet missing

yo Black1987stang -- how does one of those 1/4" gasket spacers get sucked-up into the oil pump, even of it drops into the pan? My pick-up has a screen of similar mesh to a screendoor.... not going through that. Reason I'm asking is that I'm missing one... the center upper which could have fallen thru the punched-out vent hole in my Windsor Jr's and into the valley. Now I'm scared.
GT1966

GT1966 said:

yo Black1987stang -- how does one of those 1/4" gasket spacers get sucked-up into the oil pump, even of it drops into the pan? My pick-up has a screen of similar mesh to a screendoor.... not going through that. Reason I'm asking is that I'm missing one... the center upper which could have fallen thru the punched-out vent hole in my Windsor Jr's and into the valley. Now I'm scared.
GT1966

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Im not sure how mine came loose, it must have been my fault one of the numerous times I had my valve covers off, fell through the oil drain hole. From what I learned pickups have a valve in it where if it gets clogged up or when the oils real thick (like First start of the day like me) the screen or something raises and it sucks up the oil unfiltered? I inspected the oil pickup and I couldn't see anything like that but only half the pickup screen is exposed so a valve might be in there somewhere. My one teacher had showed me a oil pickup with a valve in it so I know they're out there but I forget who made it. I found a chunk like 3/10 of the complete ring and it was in between the rotors of my pump so it did somehow make it though the screen, assuming because of the valve. I had sooo many itty bitty chunks in my oil pan and glittery oil so idk how it got into my pan within a few seconds unless it was from the night before.....Only thing I can suggest is put a strong magnet at the bottom of your pain or something

You said your pushrods are new, did you measure for them to make sure you have proper vavle train geometry?

keith get new p-rods and tighten them down!!!! hard you cant over tighten them they are pedistal mount........

slow95gt said:

keith get new p-rods and tighten them down!!!! hard you cant over tighten them they are pedistal mount........

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You can't overtighten them?

If you're pushrods are too long and/or you forgot to install the pedestal shims (only if needed), torquing the pushrods even on a pedestal mount rocker could lead to excessive lifter preload. Which basically is an over-tightening of the pushrod in the lifter seat = bad.

BK sometimes oil gets in the rocker bolt holes and your bolt will bottom out on the oil as it is not compressible, and the rocker will be loose. Check for that before you go buying new lifters and stuff. It has happened to me twice.

JT's right, you dont want to tighten them to much or you will have otehr issues.

I remove the damn crush washers on every cork gasket, as long as you are not king kong when tightening the gasket you will be fine.

What is your lifter preload???

preload is how much tension you have on the lifter plunger. Take a piece of masking tape and put it on the pushrod at the height where you can get a straighht edge on the pushrod using the head to stabilize it. Adjust the rocker to "0 lash" and make a mark on the tape, then tighten the rocker down to spec and make a new mark. Measure the distance between the 2 marks and let us know what it is... Use a sharp pencil....

BEFORE YOU DO THAT, take a sharpie and color to tip of the valve tip. After you have the marks and it is all adjusted rotate the motor around once. This way when you remove the rocker you can see the sweep across the valve tip. You want to make sure the rocker is rolling across the valve tip towards the exhaust then towards the intake. The mark it leaves should not be more then say .080" wide.

Heres a link to cranes set of instructions for setting the right preload
http://www.cranecams.com/pdf/453e.pdf

Still need to check the preload and geometry.....that will tell you A LOT.

If the cam is worn, the lifters and cam need to be swapped out. If it wiped a lobe you now have all the metal going through your motor, bearings, etc...

BK_CAULEY said:

im studying over the preload stuff now. is there anyway you can dummify it down for me? im still confused on this concept.

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Ok, you seriously need to stop making assumptions. Even if you have stock lifters, pushrods, and rocker arms, that in no way guarantees that you have proper valvetrain geometry OR proper lifter preload. I think it's safe to assume since you seem to not know how to check your valvetrain geometry or what preload is, that you have not checked these things. This is not an insult, but it is a reminder that these things are critical to a quiet, durable, correctly working valvetrain (it's a whole system, remember!) and you need to check these things.

Just assuming because things are "stock length" that they work just won't do. Jay Allen of Camshaft Innovations has a popular saying (paraphrase): "If you are using stock-length pushrods, then I guarantee you are using the wrong-length pushrod!"

That statement is almost always true because there are SO MANY factors that could require you to change your pushrod length or require a change in your valvetrain geometry. These factors include, but aren't limited to:

head deck squareness
head gasket thickness
cylinder heads used (also any milling done)
Cam lobe profile
lifters used
rocker arms used
valve stem height
so on and so on.........

The reason why you need to ALWAYS check valvetrain geometry and pushrod height when changing things like your cam, etc. is because ANY change in those variables (and others) can lead to a REAL CHANGE in required pushrod height, etc.

Hypothetical Example: If you have a stock engine, and swap out your heads, cam, lifters, rockers, etc. Let's say for the sake of argument that these changes dictate (when measured) a .050" shorter pushrod than stock. If you bolt your new combo all together with the stock pushrods, having not checked valvetrain geometry and lifter preload, than you could be close to bottoming out the plunger in the hydraulic lifter bottom (if it was severe enough). You wouldn't even realize it, but you would be shortening the life of your valvetrain and have noise issues.

How to check Valvetrain Geometry Procedure:

1. Have all of the components installed that you will be using on your "new" setup (eg. heads, head gaskets, cam, lifters, etc etc).
2. Take a marker, such as a sharpie, and "color in" the valve stem tip on one of your valves.
3. Go ahead and install a pushrod (it's ok to start with stock length here, since this is just a measurement and not necessarily the final setup) and rocker arm on that valve. MAKE SURE to follow the rocker arm adjusting and/or installation procedure for that type of rocker arm before you continue.
4. Turn the motor over by hand through a couple revolutions (to allow the rocker arm to push down on the valve stem tip at least a few times).
5. Now REMOVE the rocker arm. The tip of the rocker arm will have worn away some of the marker you had filled in on the valve stem tip, and created a "witness mark". The thickness and location of this witness mark will TELL YOU if your pushrods are creating a proper valvetrain geometry, or if the one you used is wrong and you need a different length.
6. Ideally, you want the witness mark to be a thin line, mostly centered on the valve stem tip. If the witness mark is too far out on the "exhaust side" of the valve stem tip or too far out on the "intake side" of the valve stem tip, then you know you need different length pushrods. Now would be a good time to purchase a pushrod length checker tool!!!

Example of witness mark thin and centered:



How to check for proper hydraulic lifter preload:

Hydraulic lifters have a "plunger". When people refer to achieving "zero lash" before making the final tightening on an adjustable rocker setup, what they mean is that all of the vertical slop between the lifter plunger and the rocker arm pushrod seat have been taken up, but that the pushrod has not pushed the plunger down yet. Checking lifter preload is verifying that the lifter plunger is not out of range. With the rocker arm torqued down (pedestal) or adjusted approx. 1/2 turn (adjustable stud), that lifter plunger should be between .020 and .060" below the snap-ring aka. lock ring in the lifter.



One way to check this, and Rick91GT has another great way (you can practically invent any way to check this), is to lay a piece of metal or any flat surface across the valve cover mating surface of your cylinder head. When you have achieved "zero lash", use the flat metal as a place to scribe a line on the pushrod. After you have torqued down the rocker (pedestal) or made your approx. 1/2 turn (adjustable stud), that will have pushed the pushrod down into the lifter a little bit. Now, make a second scribe line on the pushrod using your flat metal as kind of like a straight edge. Then, measuring the distance between the two scribe lines on the pushrod will tell you how much lifter preload you have.

Helpful Reading:

http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles/116_0401_setting_pushrod_length/index1.html

http://www.cranecams.com/?show=faq&id=6