Ideas on what's causing my click/tick/rattle noise?

[halfafish]

Comments about post #114.
- carbon; looks like oil getting into the chamber. Piston ring failure, worn v/guides &/or seals. Also most important: check the wear of the ring grooves, up/down, in the pistons. Worn grooves make excellent oil pumps....
- looks like a tremendous amount of coolant/crud around for just 700 miles.

I agree that it sure looks like oil is getting in the chambers. When I pulled the plugs for a check at 500 miles, the threads were wet with oil on several of them and they looked like crap. I have a pic in post #121 but here's a bigger and better one. The plugs are in order 1-6 from L-R. I have the second set of plugs that ran for the last 200 miles, I'll get a pic of those later today.

The head was redone with all new valves, guides, and seals along with porting and an oversize valve job. Is is possible that stuff could leak when it's all new? I will double check the rings and ring grooves. These also were all new, but I'll check them anyway.

 

[my68barracuda]

I agree that it sure looks like oil is getting in the chambers. When I pulled the plugs for a check at 500 miles, the threads were wet with oil on several of them and they looked like crap. I have a pic in post #121 but here's a bigger and better one. The plugs are in order 1-6 from L-R. I have the second set of plugs that ran for the last 200 miles, I'll get a pic of those later today.

View attachment 1715878611

The head was redone with all new valves, guides, and seals along with porting and an oversize valve job. Is is possible that stuff could leak when it's all new? I will double check the rings and ring grooves. These also were all new, but I'll check them anyway.

What kind of valve stem seals are in the motor, umbrella or positive?
I agree that oil on the sparkplug threads is an indicator of a lot of oil getting into the cylinder. Are you seeing blue smoke out the tail pipe?

 

[halfafish]

What kind of valve stem seals are in the motor, umbrella or positive?
I agree that oil on the sparkplug threads is an indicator of a lot of oil getting into the cylinder. Are you seeing blue smoke out the tail pipe?

The seals are umbrella. I didn't see blue smoke like you would from an old clunker. However I did have visible vapor often.

 

[halfafish]

 

[volaredon]

those worked fine for years especially from new, but hardened and didnt help much once they got old

 

[RustyRatRod]

I don't see any evidence of burning oil. All I see is an over rich condition. Simple tuning.

 

[my68barracuda]

I don't see any evidence of burning oil. All I see is an over rich condition. Simple tuning.

See post 128 where he mentions the ‘visible vapor’. Also the oil on the sparkplug threads.

 

[my68barracuda]

Halfafish,, in the very first post you mention that the truck is an 82 D150, later in the same post you mention lashing the valves.
An 82 D150 would have hydraulic lifters.
Did you have the OE hydraulic cam reground with a mechanical cam profile and then substitute in mechanical rockers using the 82 hydraulic head?
Also did you put the mechanical rockers on the hydraulic rocker arm shaft?

Asking as the slant six hydraulic cam has a full 360 degree oil grove on the rear journal and it supplies a lot of oil to the rocker shaft, a good amount of that oil goes down the push rods to keep the hydraulic lifters pumped up.
The slant mechanical cam has only a through hole on the rear journal and puts much less oil up top.

Full time oiling intended for hydraulic head, that is not diverting oil to the lifters will way overwhelm umbrellas seals and even positive valve seals. It will also bleed oil away from the bottom end of the motor.
This may also be the source of your rod bearing issue.
Folks that run slants with mechanical valve trains on reground hydraulic cam cores restrict the oil going to the rocker shaft.

 

[volaredon]

I think somewhere in between, I remember him sayin that he went with mechanical valve gear setup..... but its been a day or 3 since I read thru it all....

 

[j par]

Halfafish,, in the very first post you mention that the truck is an 82 D150, later in the same post you mention lashing the valves.
An 82 D150 would have hydraulic lifters.
Did you have the OE hydraulic cam reground with a mechanical cam profile and then substitute in mechanical rockers using the 82 hydraulic head?
Also did you put the mechanical rockers on the hydraulic rocker arm shaft?

Asking as the slant six hydraulic cam has a full 360 degree oil grove on the rear journal and it supplies a lot of oil to the rocker shaft, a good amount of that oil goes down the push rods to keep the hydraulic lifters pumped up.
The slant mechanical cam has only a through hole on the rear journal and puts much less oil up top.

Full time oiling intended for hydraulic head, that is not diverting oil to the lifters will way overwhelm umbrellas seals and even positive valve seals. It will also bleed oil away from the bottom end of the motor.
This may also be the source of your rod bearing issue.
Folks that run slants with mechanical valve trains on reground hydraulic cam cores restrict the oil going to the rocker shaft.

Interesting...

 

[volaredon]

well, I did just go back and re read from post #1.
I have to add... My Dad had a /6 in an 82 Gran Fury in the late 80s. I took the car one day, and noticed the water pump sounded loud/ and I told him about it... and he said "we'll wait til it gets worse, it isn't losing any antifreeze"
the next time I used Dad's car, (like a week later, he'd driven it daily in between) the water pump totally went out, bearing came apart.... were talking "fan into radiator" bad. I limped it back home, it had gotten HOT. I'd let it cool a while, then start it up, get to cruising speed, shut down, throw into neutral, shut off key, and coast as far as I could, repeat. The result ended up with a cracked head. To get his car going as quickly as possible, (and knowing alot less about these engines then, than I do now/ not saying that I know much now) I took the head off my 80 Aspen that was recently wrecked. 700 miles on a fresh overhaul on the Aspen's engine. (which was a much earlier slant, earlier enough to have had drool tubes) I put that drool tube head on the 82 engine, and everything worked fine. and I remember having to drill out that rocker shaft, for the fatter rearmost bolt that the drool tube head had on it. but he drove that car a few more years like that, ran fine without any problems from the engine. that Aspen's engine, had been my 1st slant 6 overhaul. story on that one for later. I'll just say for now, that's the car that I learned about there having been 2 different sized torque converter registers, over the years. gives you an idea how much older the engine I rebuilt for that car was, than the car itself.

and pic in post 129 answers a question I saw posted much earlier in the thread, about exhaust valve rotators. the engine taht is the subject of this thread, doesn't have them./
but I know that they did use them, on some slants. I bought a freshly rebuilt head a year ago from a guy on CL, a guy that used to run 2 charter fishing boats on Lake Michigan/ each powered by twin slants. He kept a fresh head ready all the time, as he complained about what unleaded fuel had done to the heads on his engines.
In the box of extra/spare parts that came with, (several old valves still in serviceable condition, springs, extra rockers, drool tubes, and more random, slant specific goodies) were several shorter valve springs and a bunch of valve rotators.....I kept some but picked thru the box, and scrapped a good percentage of it.

 

[my68barracuda]

well, I did just go back and re read from post #1.
I have to add... My Dad had a /6 in an 82 Gran Fury in the late 80s. I took the car one day, and noticed the water pump sounded loud/ and I told him about it... and he said "we'll wait til it gets worse, it isn't losing any antifreeze"
the next time I used Dad's car, (like a week later, he'd driven it daily in between) the water pump totally went out, bearing came apart.... were talking "fan into radiator" bad. I limped it back home, it had gotten HOT. I'd let it cool a while, then start it up, get to cruising speed, shut down, throw into neutral, shut off key, and coast as far as I could, repeat. The result ended up with a cracked head. To get his car going as quickly as possible, (and knowing alot less about these engines then, than I do now/ not saying that I know much now) I took the head off my 80 Aspen that was recently wrecked. 700 miles on a fresh overhaul on the Aspen's engine. (which was a much earlier slant, earlier enough to have had drool tubes) I put that drool tube head on the 82 engine, and everything worked fine. and I remember having to drill out that rocker shaft, for the fatter rearmost bolt that the drool tube head had on it. but he drove that car a few more years like that, ran fine without any problems from the engine. that Aspen's engine, had been my 1st slant 6 overhaul. story on that one for later. I'll just say for now, that's the car that I learned about there having been 2 different sized torque converter registers, over the years. gives you an idea how much older the engine I rebuilt for that car was, than the car itself.

and pic in post 129 answers a question I saw posted much earlier in the thread, about exhaust valve rotators. the engine taht is the subject of this thread, doesn't have them./
but I know that they did use them, on some slants. I bought a freshly rebuilt head a year ago from a guy on CL, a guy that used to run 2 charter fishing boats on Lake Michigan/ each powered by twin slants. He kept a fresh head ready all the time, as he complained about what unleaded fuel had done to the heads on his engines.
In the box of extra/spare parts that came with, (several old valves still in serviceable condition, springs, extra rockers, drool tubes, and more random, slant specific goodies) were several shorter valve springs and a bunch of valve rotators.....I kept some but picked thru the box, and scrapped a good percentage of it.

Don, a mechanical valve train head oils just like a hydraulic valve train head, so with the exception of the work around for the rear rocker shaft bolt, not much changes.
The big oiling difference between a hydraulic and a mechanical system is not in the head.
The big difference is the full groove on the rear cam journal of the hydraulic system sends oil to the rockers 100% of the time the camshaft is rotating. A mechanical cam with only a drilled hole through the rear cam journal sends oil to the rockers a few degrees of camshaft rotation.

 

[RustyRatRod]

See post 128 where he mentions the ‘visible vapor’. Also the oil on the sparkplug threads.

The threads are not in the combustion chamber.

 

[my68barracuda]

The threads are not in the combustion chamber.

Rusty, one can take a sparkplug that has a longer threaded section that matched the thread pitch and diameter and it will thread through the sparkplug hole and into the combustion chamber.
Sparkplugs do not have interference pipe threads.
Excess oil in the combustion chamber, pressurized by the piston compression process will have the oil pushed around the threads and up to the sparkplug body.
Remember there is compression in the combustion chamber before there is combustion.

 

[Killer6]

Don, a mechanical valve train head oils just like a hydraulic valve train head, so with the exception of the work around for the rear rocker shaft bolt, not much changes.
The big oiling difference between a hydraulic and a mechanical system is not in the head.
The big difference is the full groove on the rear cam journal of the hydraulic system sends oil to the rockers 100% of the time the camshaft is rotating. A mechanical cam with only a drilled hole through the rear cam journal sends oil to the rockers a few degrees of camshaft rotation.

I believe that is understood, but as posted above, a drool-tube head was transfered valvetrain & all w/only drilling up the shaft at the specialty bolt...w/o running/smoking issues.

 

[Killer6]

The threads are not in the combustion chamber.

There's no other way for oil to touch those taper-seat plugs unless the valve cover was hemmoraging & painted them on the way out.

 

[Killer6]

Not to mention the glossy glaze on the ceramic portion of the projection. Honestly, I cannot think of one single reason why a modern, state of the art PC seal would not be used on anything. Good Lord, it's 2022 Folks.

 

[my68barracuda]

I believe that is understood, but as posted above, a drool-tube head was transfered valvetrain & all w/only drilling up the shaft at the specialty bolt...w/o running/smoking issues.

Read the last few sentences of the post you quoted, I agree the difference in oiling is not in the cylinder head. The difference in oiling is in the rear cam journal.

 

[my68barracuda]

There's no other way for oil to touch those taper-seat plugs unless the valve cover was hemmoraging & painted them on the way out.

Note that there is also oil on the threads of the sparkplugs. The oil on the sparkplugs above the tapered seal may be from the valve cover gasket.
•The oil on the threads of the sparkplugs below the tapered seal is definitely from the combustion chamber.
•The oil in the combustion chamber is due to excess oiling of the valve train overwhelming the valve seals.
•The excess oil to the valve train is being caused by a hydraulic cam core with a full oil groove on the rear journal over supplying oil to a mechanical valve train.
•The excess oil to the valve train starved the rod bearings of oil and that is the primary reason the rod bearings failed.
•Pre ignition-detonation was not the cause of the rod bearing failure. Enough pre ignition-detonation to wipe out the rod bearings would have left marks on the piston tops and ring lands and there is absolutely none.

 

[halfafish]

Wow! I spent the day in the shop working on this engine, and now the thread needs a ton of updating. I may have to break this into a couple of posts to keep things coherent.

As info, the question of hydraulic/solid cam has come up often. It is indeed an 82 block with an 82 hydraulic head. I didn't want a juice cam so I swapped in a full solid valve train from a 78 Volare with rocker arm and bolts, rockers, new lifters, and I think the original pushrods. The cam is a solid cam that was reground, it does NOT have the groove on the rear journal.

Comments about post #114.
- carbon; looks like oil getting into the chamber. Piston ring failure, worn v/guides &/or seals. Also most important: check the wear of the ring grooves, up/down, in the pistons. Worn grooves make excellent oil pumps....

I will be checking the rings and grooves. These are new pistons and rings so only the problematic 700 miles on them.

Just a question.....you know there are cast crank and forged crank engines, I am sure. Unlike the V8s, the slant 6 uses different bearings in each engine. Forged crank engines have their respective blocks, cranks and rods that are all different than that of a cast crank engine. They also use different bearings. Is it possible "any of that" got mixed up?

Yes, I'm aware of the forged/cast crank business. I will double check this, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time this engine had been cracked open since it left Detroit.

 

[RustyRatRod]

Wow! I spent the day in the shop working on this engine, and now the thread needs a ton of updating. I may have to break this into a couple of posts to keep things coherent.

As info, the question of hydraulic/solid cam has come up often. It is indeed an 82 block with an 82 hydraulic head. I didn't want a juice cam so I swapped in a full solid valve train from a 78 Volare with rocker arm and bolts, rockers, new lifters, and I think the original pushrods. The cam is a solid cam that was reground, it does NOT have the groove on the rear journal.



I will be checking the rings and grooves. These are new pistons and rings so only the problematic 700 miles on them.



Yes, I'm aware of the forged/cast crank business. I will double check this, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time this engine had been cracked open since it left Detroit.

Right, but you replaced the bearings, correct? With the correct replacements? That's what I was getting at.

 

[halfafish]

Right, but you replaced the bearings, correct? With the correct replacements? That's what I was getting at.

Yes, all bearings were replaced when the engine was built. I am certain all the bearings were the correct ones.

 

[halfafish]

To me RIGHT NOW, the most important issue is the physical damage and finding out what happened there. The carbon and sooty richness is clearly an unrelated tuning issue and can be ironed out after the fact. I would try to concentrate on the physical engine failure FIRST.

I'm not sure now to figure that out? I had good oil pressure. When tearing it down I pulled the pan and double checked the torque on the rods and mains to make sure I didn't skip any and leave them loose - they were all spot on. Sadly, I didn't think to keep the rod bearings so they are gone now. When I built the motor, I plastigaged both rods and mains, they were in spec. The rods and mains were all still standard on the journals. I can verify the original main bearings were standard, I still have the old set. I'm quite sure the rod bearings were the right size (also standard). So far I got the crank back into the block and it plastigaged correctly with new main bearings. I mocked up the pistons with the new bearings and those also plastigaged correctly. I'm waiting for a new set of rings and I will install the pistons for their next go-round.

 

[halfafish]

Halfafish,, in the very first post you mention that the truck is an 82 D150, later in the same post you mention lashing the valves.
An 82 D150 would have hydraulic lifters.
Did you have the OE hydraulic cam reground with a mechanical cam profile and then substitute in mechanical rockers using the 82 hydraulic head?
Also did you put the mechanical rockers on the hydraulic rocker arm shaft?

Asking as the slant six hydraulic cam has a full 360 degree oil grove on the rear journal and it supplies a lot of oil to the rocker shaft, a good amount of that oil goes down the push rods to keep the hydraulic lifters pumped up.
The slant mechanical cam has only a through hole on the rear journal and puts much less oil up top.

Full time oiling intended for hydraulic head, that is not diverting oil to the lifters will way overwhelm umbrellas seals and even positive valve seals. It will also bleed oil away from the bottom end of the motor.
This may also be the source of your rod bearing issue.
Folks that run slants with mechanical valve trains on reground hydraulic cam cores restrict the oil going to the rocker shaft.

I swapped all solid valve train stuff into the hydraulic head. Rocker arm, rockers, and solid cam (reground by OCG) all came out of a 78 Volare I parted out a while ago.

 

[RustyRatRod]

I'm not sure now to figure that out? I had good oil pressure. When tearing it down I pulled the pan and double checked the torque on the rods and mains to make sure I didn't skip any and leave them loose - they were all spot on. Sadly, I didn't think to keep the rod bearings so they are gone now. When I built the motor, I plastigaged both rods and mains, they were in spec. The rods and mains were all still standard on the journals. I can verify the original main bearings were standard, I still have the old set. I'm quite sure the rod bearings were the right size (also standard). So far I got the crank back into the block and it plastigaged correctly with new main bearings. I mocked up the pistons with the new bearings and those also plastigaged correctly. I'm waiting for a new set of rings and I will install the pistons for their next go-round.

Well, I don't know man. SOMETHING happened.

I've often thought it sucked that the slant 6 is so difficult to prime. It has to run basically dry until the pump fills the filter and the engine finally gets oil.

BUT I thought of a way you can actually do it. It's a pain. With the camshaft in the engine and the oil pump in and filter on, you can spin the camshaft with an air ratchet and prime the engine. You don't want to use an impact of course. lol

I just slob lots of engine assembly grease on so the engine doesn't have a chance of being to dry and have at it. I've done the camshaft spin thing once and it does work though.