I found some pretty serious lifter wear...

[mitch@wildhorses]

She’s not looking too hot. But let me back up real quick. After hearing a knock in the engine bay, I was led down the rabbit hole trying to find the problem. Eventually I talked to a fellow Bronco driver who pointed me in the right direction as far as how to diagnose the problem.​

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Low and behold, after pulling the valve cover and the intake manifold(again) I found some pretty serious lifter wear. Unfortunately, this calls for pulling the cam shaft and checking multiple other aspects of the engine. It’ll be a lot of work and I’ll be quite the sweaty mess when it’s all done, but again, I can’t complain. I love to learn even if it means getting my hands dirty all over again. So cheers to the process! And shoutout to Jay Patterson for giving me the pointers I needed! Let me know if you guys have any questions​

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[Yeller]

time for a roller cam looks like to me, which sucks, I know how recently this bullet went in......

Be sure to cut the oil filter apart and see how much crap is in there. YouTube filter cutting

not sure how I learned what I know without YouTube...... Oh lots of wasted time, money and figuring it out the 5th time

 

[toddz69]

X2 on a roller cam.

Todd Z.

 

[tirewater]

I'd recommend a roller cam, but it's a big expense. Camshaft, link bar lifters, springs, push rods, then you have to pull the heads to get the link bar lifters in, so a new gasket set. When a hydraulic flat tappet cam kit (w/ lifters) costs ~$150 (summit k3601) - it's a big jump in cost.

 

[Broncobowsher]

The problem is the metal that wore off, never left the engine.
I know you said pull the cam, which won't come out with the Bronco grill in place.
Just pull the the engine. Drop the pan. Expect to put in at least a pump as it pulls all the oil before sending it to the filter.
Check some bearings as well. Maybe you had a good filter, maybe you are down the rebuild rabbit hole.

 

[Eoth]

I started down that hole... Stuck lifter, bad crank, didnt want to go further.... Explorer swap....

 

[bax]

Yeah that's not good. Zinc is your only friend with the flat tappet cams. Lots of the oil today is not suited for flat tappets. The good stuff has been removed to save the environment. In flat tappet motors I don't use sinthetic oil. Rotella works great and I always put a pint of zinc additive.

 

[Viperwolf1]

If they just made camshafts out of zinc lifters would never wear out.

Sent from my SM-G781U1 using Tapatalk

 

[bax]

If they just made camshafts out of zinc lifters would never wear out.

Sent from my SM-G781U1 using Tapatalk

I like that idea. or lifters with a composition bottom.

 

[Anewway]

Mitch, can you describe how you diagnosed the problem?
I started to break in my freshly rebuilt engine yesterday and everything went well until some unusual noise 5 min in. I shut it down and am checking things over.

 

[Rustytruck]

since powdered metal will be everywhere . make sure you pull the oil gallery plugs and scrub them out. hows the wear on the distributor gear? You get to learn engine assembly now. check the crankshaft thrust bearing end play. look for powdered metal in the cam bearings. at least you got it before catastrophic failure. but everything needs to be extremely clean on reassembly. how much did the cam wear?

 

[nvrstuk]

2nd most expensive repair for an engine is lifter failure. We all know what #1 is.

If you "just" have "wear" you are more than likely just plain lucky! Yeah, luck means only having to pull the intake 2x, replace the cam, lifters, gaskets, etc, etc, etc. lol

But luck also means you aren't sleeving a cylinder like we had to do on a stroker I spec'd out 16 yrs ago. 454 WP block... rad build but a link bar roller lifter grenaded with less than 400 miles. Complete disassembly, rehoned all cylinders, new rings, new brgs... yeah, almost a total rebuild. SUCKED!!!

Mitch, I'm thinking if you just have scuff marks on those lifters you are lucky!

I would definitely go roller lifter and all that entails. Not cheap but cam failure in Fords due to new oils is getting close to how common cam failures were on SBC's back in the day. New oil pump, check the brgs but (disclaimer) w/o seeing the lifter wear I think you are good to replace the pump all lifters, cam etc.

Like Steve said, pull that filter off and cut it up. If there is anything larger than powder and if your engine is worth a bunch then you should disassemble and do it right.

 

[mitch@wildhorses]

Thanks for all the feedback on this! Definitely going to be doing a lot more checking. Full roller sounds like the way to go. I haven't had time to pull the cam out yet or check oil or filters but I'll definitely make a checklist based on this thread! For now, I just uploaded the diagnose video on YouTube. Bear with me as I'm still learning all this haha thanks again everyone!
Diagnose Video

 

[mitch@wildhorses]

Mitch, can you describe how you diagnosed the problem?
I started to break in my freshly rebuilt engine yesterday and everything went well until some unusual noise 5 min in. I shut it down and am checking things over.

I just uploaded a video on Youtube highlighting my whole process. Feel free to watch that. After Jay Patterson gave me some pointers in Wisconsin, I came back and started looking things over. First, I took a long screwdriver and used it as a makeshift stethoscope to listen to different parts of the engine. Then I begin pulling individual spark plugs while the engine was running to see if it made any difference to the noise. That helped isolate the problem to cylinder 4. Once I knew where to start digging, I tore into the valve covers and eventually into the manifold to find the messed up lifter.