Aww shit, here we go again

[Crownvicman289]

And now I too have enjoyed a few adult beverages, more specifically delicious . Lifters have 5/8 turn preload, Ford's spec is 3/4 turn, right? I checked all 8 on a stone cold motor so I know it's dead on. WTF now for that stupid valvetrain noise? Anyone ever heard of them bleeding down warm? My next course of action is to change the fresh oil again out for 10W40 and dump a bottle of Lucas in there to see if it shuts the fuck up. I've got a stock HO cam, Explorer lifters, pushrods, rockers, and heads. I kept everything in order so every moving part that got to know each other is still making contact with its same original part. Valve springs/retainers are FRPP pieces off of GT40X heads, I think they're 110# installed at 1.8" so hardly overkill. Intake retainers are FRPP and exhaust retainers are Crane offset to compensate for the different stem lengths. I've got good oil pressure and good oil flow as evidenced by the mess on my floor left by checking warm valve clearance with a running engine and no valve covers. It sounds absolutely nothing like bottom end noise IMO. I'm totally at a loss here.

[gadget73]

The proper way to check it is with a dial indicator. I think its .020 - .060 preload but don't quote me on that number. I think I recall that mrltd needed longer pushrods, but he's running an aftermarket cam. I think the motor in Tom's 87 Vic also needed different pushrods with the P heads and the HO cam.

For whatever its worth to you, mine are about 5/8 turn and the top end is a little chattery. I know I have at least one worn rocker arm but its got more chatter than one rocker would give. I've never actually checked the preload but it was on my list of shit to do if I ever feel motivated enough to swap the intake. Right now my lower is welded together in a couple spots and one of the bolts felt like it was about ready to let go last I put it on, so I dare not take it apart until I'm really ready to mess with it.

[Crownvicman289]

.020-.060 applies to the old flat tappet stuff, but I can't find anything to denounce its application to the roller motors either. It's a common range tossed about frequently according to my google searches. I'll find out tomorrow what my preload actually is, I'm hoping 5/8 turn is on the low side, but I'm betting it's .035-.040. I can get FRPP pushrods that are .022 longer than stock which is the simplest solution. I see FRPP's shim set comes with .030 and .060 shims, so if .022 is too much, I'll have to get a .040-.045 longer rod to use with the shims. We shall see. . . about Tom's 87 Vic, is that his screen name? I'd like to do a search and see.

[P72Ford]

I own Tom's white tudor now.

The pushrods in it are the stock 6.250". The geometry in the car is wrong though, because it makes a little noise. I measured preload, and shimmed rockers to start, and it was quite noisy. After I removed the shims, it was quieter. I suspect a 6.300, and shimming would be correct for my car, but I never got that far.

Correct preload is .020-.060, shooting for .040, obviously. I used a lifter that I converted to solid to measure, as well as a Comp Cams hi tech adjustable pushrod. I also paid attention to the witness mark left by the roller tip on the valve tip. There are some interesting discussions out there about correct witness marks. Some think the width is all that matters, and some compromise the width for centering the mark on the valve tip.

Valvetrain geometry is critical to allowing maximum lift at the valve.

[gadget73]

yeah I need to revist the geometry on my car. I never checked the preload or what kind of pattern it was making on the valve stems. Don't think it was ever checked on Tom's motor either, though for some reason I thought that had different pushrods. Maybe I'm thinking of a different project.

[Crownvicman289]

Well that 5/8 turn preload translates into .052" at the lifter, so I definitely won't be adding any more. If anything, I'd prefer to get 16 .010" shims if they exist. I think I need to watch that comp cams video again as it explained the geometry pretty good. I changed out the Walmart 5W30 oil with Marvel Mystery oil and Fram filter for some Valvoline 10W40, Lucas, and a Wix filter. Oil pressure is up substantially and the ticking is a lot less annoying. I went for a spin and it was shitty cold, but as soon as it hit 150 it pulled its head out of its ass and ran borderline normal. Since I got the bumpers reinstalled, I'm going to start DD'ing it again and see how it does. Just gotta get my throttle blade set where I want it and redo the TPS once that's done. I also have a (presumably) functioning charcoal canister for the first time ever. I tried to cheat and unplug my EGR valve vacuum controller thingy, but when I yanked the line off the valve itself and put a finger to it I could feel, without an electrical signal being supplied to said controller thingy, a pulsed vacuum signal being supplied to the EGR valve. Is there a specific in/out on that thing?

In other news, I found a shop in town who can re-swedge my AC line so it'll look factory and not leave me at the mercy of a single hose clamp. Going to hit that up tomorrow after the junkyard.

[gadget73]

there is an in/out though I don't recall which is which. I wanna say if its backwards, it just sucks manifold vacuum through the filter on top and doesn't actually pass to the valve though. I also get the pulse feel on my finger but it shouldn't move the gauge if you hook one up.

[Crownvicman289]

Took a road trip to Denver to pick up my "75k" Crane/Ford 1.7RRs and guess what? They are shiny silver and look like brand spanking new. Can't beat that for $100 with all the hardware. In addition to that, I think the pig might have knocked down 26mpg along the way! That's according to the dash, and since I forgot to reset the trip meter right now I'm just guessing the number of miles I actually drove on this tank.

[Crownvicman289]

Denver and back again today, this time for 4 tires for $50. With the lack of dryrot, not only do I anticipate they'll hold air, I suspect I'll have more traction as well. It seriously looks like 25-26mpg is what this boat will knock down on the highway. FINALLY, after all these years of assholes posting such numbers, do I get to experience them. Now I go get caffeine and install my roller rockers if I get good lifter preload. The ticking that I do have seems to get quieter and quieter the more miles I put on the car.

[Crownvicman289]

I lose ~.020" lifter preload to the roller rockers, which puts me right around .020" preload. Some less. FML. Why oh why didn't I grab the Cobra pushrods? If the fucker answers my texts and has a caliper, I might be making a 3rd trip to Denver tomorrow.

[Crownvicman289]

Guess what? Cobra used the same 6.25" pushrods. Had the machine shop order me some 6.300s and they handed me 6.25" rods. If anyone was to get it right, I thought it would have been them. What a load of shit. So I ordered some 6.3" Trickflow pushrods and guess what? They're actual length, not theoretical, and better yet the 1 I checked was 6.31", so FRPP shims were ordered this morning. What a buzzer beater these lifters will be. I leave next Saturday and still have an asston to do. So I slapped the stock shit back in today to get it running to see if my AC would take a charge. It appears that it did, it was blowing 45 degree air out of the vent so that's a good sign. The compressor refused to cycle on its own until it was on the last bottle of freon. I had to jumper the low pressure switch to fake the compressor into turning on to get it to take what it took. Must be a beast of a compressor because it drags the pressure down to nil in a hurry. Went for a spin and as soon as it started to get cold, it'd start to blow hot air, then switch back to cold, so I obviously won't know how effective the AC is until I get this HVAC problem nailed down. Goin to the boneyard tomorrow for some pocket sized blower motor transistor/resistors and hopefully that's all my problem is. It used to be stuck on full high/auto only, but now I can turn it off. It only turns on if I put the switch in the WOT position, but ironically it seems to default to auto in that position. Fuckin turd. Ooh, I did score an AFE "cold air" intake and had brand new cone filter in the garage that happened to fit. I had to mod my rubber intake tube to accomodate it, but I like this setup better than the stock airbox now as the rubber coupler isn't stressed and bent at a weird angle anymore.

[gadget73]

Sounds like the pressure is going so low that the compressor is cycling out. Make sure the evaporator is clean. Mine had enough dirt and shit in there that it was freezing and causing the compressor to cycle a lot. You can get to enough of the evaporator to get it reasonably clean if you pull the blower motor out. Can't get it perfectly but its enough to get an air line in there to blow the dust out, and then a garden hose to flush out anything else thats hanging around.

I thought the Cobra used the same pushrods as stock, but I didn't want to say anything because I wasn't actually sure. I got a set of pushrods with my Cobra rockers, and they were absolutely identical to my stockers. I wasn't really sure if they were genuine from a Cobra parts, or just someone had bought Cobra rockers and stuck them on a stock HO, then sold the set with the stock HO pushrods. I do know the Cobra heads were shaved a bit, so likely stock rods worked properly with that geometry. I do need to revisit my own top end setup at some point. Its a bit chattery and I'd like to confirm all the preload and valve contact stuff to make sure its what it ought to be. I basically just bolted it together before and didn't check it so its probably wrong.

[Crownvicman289]

Yeah, like I said, just bolting Cobra rockers to the rest of the stock stuff netted a ~.025" loss in preload. So if I would have shaved the heads .030" for a little compression bump, I'd be set. Hopefully it gets good and warm so I can see how well it works. Blowing out the evap is definitely something I'll look into, too easy to not do. Now it's off to the junkyard.

Before I go, I plugged the EGR valve into the port that vents to atmosphere on the EVR thinking that was correct. As soon as I started the car, the idle was surging badly and when I unplugged the EGR, it was fine. So I plugged it into the EVR in a manner that I believe to be bass ackwards and the idle is again happy. I'll check for EGR codes, but I never had any before and my TB spacer indicated the EGR was flowing when I yanked the 289.

[Crownvicman289]

Believe it or not I made more forward progress today. Something is bound to go horribly wrong when I make actual progress. I found a couple pocket sized transistor/resistors for the blower motor in some LTCs. The first rust-free one I tried worked like a champ, so I now have a fully functioning HVAC system for the first time since I've owned the car. Next I swapped out the fucked up ass tie rod end that was bound to kill me and reset the toe (~2-3mm toe in). Camber checked out at ~1.5* negative on both sides, so I let it ride. As for the evaporator, I found approximately 3 pine needles in there, so that's definitely not a factor. I'm told my low pressure switch it adjustable, so now I need to hit up Hobo Freight for a set of AC gauges because the one I have has an annoying memory type function like a compression gauge thus making it impossible to monitor the pressure at which the compressor kicks off. I was told to set it to kick off at 18psi and since the 134 shit tends to operate at higher pressures, there's no telling where that switch was set from the factory. Unless you know Gadget, this is right up your alley. . .

[gadget73]

Cool. A lot of the time you can simply re-solder those controllers to fix that problem. The solder cracks on the big transistor and the whole thing quits or it goes intermittant.

I think R12 is out at 25 and in at 40 or 45. R134 usually is happier about 18-20 out and it comes on 35-40. Can't set the differential, just the cutout pressure. The adjustment is under the connector. Just unplug it, and you'll see the phillips head screw in there. I forget which way it turns to lower the pressure but its about 1/4 turn.