Noisy Lifters
| The engine was in pieces when I bought the car so I sent it off for rebuild. Years passed before I finally put it back in the car and fired it up.
Although it was running on all 8, the lifters were noisy and something isn't right. |
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| I removed the valve covers and found only a little oil on the under side. The rocker shafts are lightly oiled but not as wet as I expected.
Turns out this is normal for these engines -- they don't swamp the rocker area with oil. |
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| Although the dash gauge registered good oil pressure, I thought I should inspect the oil pump. It was new when the engine was rebuilt but you never know until you look. | 
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| Another view of the oil pump. The pick up screen checked clear, and the bypass valved checked OK. |  |
On this engine, the oil pump is in the oil pan, mounted to the rear main bearing. It is a lot more work to replace one of these as compared to the external pump used on the wedge engines. |
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| Here is the engine with the rear main removed, showing the oil gallery check valve. These are sometimes left off during rebuilds and I decided to check. | 
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| Even though there was nothing to suggest the pump was bad, given the work involved to remove the pan I decided to replace the oil pump. Hot Heads has a high volume pump for this engine. It is modified from a 340 oil pump, and here is the installation. | |
| The original oil pump installed on the rear main bearing. | 
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| Comparison of original oil pump (left) and 340 high volume pump (right) from Hot Heads. | 
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| To the left is the rear main bearing cap. To the right is the new pump kit. |
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| The adaptor plate installed on the rear main bearing cap. |
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| The new oil pump installed for test fit. |
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| The new oil pump installed. |
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While I was replacing the oil pump, I decided to replace the original starter motor with the compact high torque starter from Hot Heads (address below). On the left is the original starter and solenoid. On the right is the new compact starter. The original starter weighs 23 pounds. The compact weighs 8 pounds. The original battery cable was 1/2 inch too short to reach the new starter connections but other than that, the installation of the new starter was easy. As expected, it turns the engine over much faster than before. | 
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| When I fired up the engine with the new oil pump, there was higher pressure registered on the dash gauge but it did not solve the lifter clacking. Click here to continue. | |
Hot Heads Research & Racing, Inc.
276 Walker's Hollow Trail
Lowgap, NC 27024.
Contact Bob Walker
Phone: (336) 352-4866 Fax: (336) 352-3892
E-mail: info@HotHemiHeads.com
http://www.hothemiheads.com/hotheadspi.html
High torque starters, oil filter conversions.
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