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Last run of the season.....

hoser

hoser

Well-Known Member
Last run ends in disaster. Thought I heard a lifter tick on the weekend after a bit of play time when I parked the car. Today , drove it to work and on the way home , I decided to stop and do some safe highway launches . After a fairly safe and easy burnout , it developed a sudden and nasty top end clack/ tick noise. The vacuum / boost gauge is jumping pretty bad between 15 and 20 hg , pretty sure there is a valve on the drivers bank not opening or closing properly. Tempted to pull the whole motor and see what condition it's in and put it back together properly with a few goodies. Guess I'll pull the valve cover first and see what happened first . I hope I can find the time before winter hits. I don't know if I can wonder about this until spring.:censor:
 
You could even have a blown headgasket. I happened to me. Doing some burn outs and the engine started ticking and not running good.I had the engine pulled and had everything inspected by a GM world class tech. He discovered that my engine had been rebuilt and the rings were just starting to seat. But I had a blown headgasket. Really I had 2 HG to blow at the same time. They could have been going out for some time and they finally went out.

Do a compression test for sure. If you have a blown HG, replace the head bolts with ARP, they are really good and strong.

I hope you have a valve problem instead of a blown HG!
 
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It's a definite rattle in the top end . Louder from the drivers side. How many broken valve springs/wiped cam lobes happen to these engines ? I'm sure the 69000 miles have not been all easy ones.
 
If you are near Edmonton I can help you work on the motor. I have changed many gaskets. Just don't ask me to tune your car.
 
jarred tuining must be easy ive done it myself for 5 yrs an im a redneck lol... but wouldnt touch another mans car cuse i swt mine on kill
 
Thanks Jarred. I should be ok tearing it down . I might pull the valve cover tomorrow if I get back from an out of town wedding in time. I wouldn't mind pulling the motor and dropping the transmission . Hard to tell what I have being the 7th owner and all. If it wasn't for the PTS Xtreme sticker on the firewall , I wouldn't know anything about the trans.
 
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Pulled the valve cover today and found 2 "S" shaped pushrods on the same clyinder and a bit of galling on the rocker pivot area. Not sure if I had a misfire when this happened...it happened too fast to tell. Need to grab a couple stock rockers and pushrods and see how it sound and runs..
 
I wonder if your timing chain is original? Hopefully the valves did not kiss the piston crown. Keep us updated. I believe I low your car, did you buy it from the man who runs the part sources and does your car have wood panelling on the dash?
 
Ya , it has the wood panel overlay and the white gauges. I'm hoping the chain has been changed. Looks like the oil pan and front cover has been off before , but without documentation , it's just a guess. I'm hopeful that it will be a quick fix , then I can get it back into storage for the winter. I will check compression before I fire it up incase the valves invaded the pistons personal space. I hate breakdowns ...
 
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Yeah I have seen your car a few times and been in it. I forgot about the white face gauges. It's a nice car, hopefully it gets all figured out before winter. If you need any parts let me know I have lots.
 
Thanks Jarred. I think whoever installed the overlay to the gauges messed up the tach and speedo . The tach is out by 600 rpm and speedo is 20 ish mph. I checked out RockAuto.com and the illustration of the rocker arms don't look correct. I'm assuming they are regular fwd 3.8 rockers ? The pushrods are a different part number than a 3.8 bonneville on the website. Not sure how easy it will be to find them in a timely fashion. I might swap pushrods from another cylinder and do a leak down test if I can't find parts quickly.
 
I can only find sealed power push rods # rp3253 (8.471" long) , no stock anywhere though. Nothing listed on comps website for this engine or length. Rocker arms are impossible to find . My engine rebuilder says a little galling is not abnormal for these types of rockers , so i might just keep them in there until i order some rollers. ....bingo ! found some...getting 12 shipped overnight
 
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Installed the two pushrods for #3 cyl and put it back together. It started up and runs good with the exception of an intermittent small misfire. #3 coil tower has some corrosion on it . The vacuum reads 21" vac at an idle with no fluctuation , so I'm pretty sure it's just an ignition misfire and not a valve issue . Must have back fired under the higher boost / heavy load of the extended tire melting show I was doing. Coil and plugwires will be ordered tomorrow. Leason learned. No pushing the old girl until I give it some preventative maintenance upgrades.
 
I just took my car to the dealer after sitting for about a year or year and a half. Plus in October of 2015, some wonderful people stole all 4 wheels and tires off my car during the wee hours. I have since put some wheels and tires on it. It would not start, so I took it to the local Buick/GMC dealer and they said they got it started but there was a loudly ticking valve. They say they want to pull the engine and take the heads to a machine shop and see what's awry. They said $1500-2000 by the time it's done. I've never had this kind of problem with a car before so I am leery of being taken for a ride and I don't want to do something that will devalue the car. It has 92,000 miles on it and is stock to my knowledge, except for a Red Armstrong XP fuel pump, a K&N conical air filter, and a Casper's cam sensor cap with a red light on top. I have had it since 42,000 miles. I did get mad at the car several years ago since it wasn't running like I wanted it to, and I floored the gas pedal while turning out of a restaurant. My turbo wastegate 3-way hoses were bad and it went into overboost - in the red area of the gauge. It made some unpleasant noises but nothing ticking or knocking. So I have wondered ever since if I caused some damage at that time. After this happened, I went to Pep Boys and took a piece of the bad hose in with me. They sold me a few dollars of hose and I replaced all three pieces immediately. After that, the boost went to exactly 16.5 psi and never went over that. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I have only done brakes, oil changes, and simple parts replacement type of repairs and have never pulled an engine, transmission, etc. and I do not have the space or the tools to do such work anyway. Should I trust my local Buick/GMC shop to do what needs to be done in their opinion? There is a two week wait for having my engine pulled if I tell them to go ahead.
 
How long did it sit without being started ? If it was 1.5 years , then maybe its just lifter bleed down. It probably had bad fuel in there causing the no start. Did they tell you what they did to get it started ? I would start it and rev it to 1200 to 1500 rpm for 10 or so minutes to see if the lifters pump themselves back up ? If it was not ticking when you parked it , there should be nothing seriously wrong......unless something happened when / after they got it running.
 
I think it was about 1.5 years. Thanks very much for your advice. No, it was not ticking the last time it ran. Is it safe to rev it up like that if it is ticking so loudly like they say? The only tick I remember hearing is the exhaust leak on the passenger side where the headers had cracked a long time ago. It was never a loud tick that sounded alarming - more of a pff pff pff sound. Suppose I ask them to do this, what is the worst case scenario? Could I end up with bent valves or damaged camshaft or worse?
 
I would definitely get a second or third set of ears on it. I would ask for an explanation why they feel the heads need to come off. They should be able to see issues under the valve cover or with a compression / leakdown test if there are mechanical issues. Last thing I would do is pull the heads because I have a noise . They need to start with the simple things first. Ask them if they think it could be a drained lifter ? My money is on that, which should / could come back to life by holding it at a medium rpm. There is really nothing else that can cause that from being in prolonged storage. It probably started and idled very rough from no oil in lifters. It would rattle and tick quite a bit and would have worried the guys starting it. I would run it for a couple minutes and see if it starts to get quieter.......
 
Thanks again very much. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. I did have a feeling that maybe they did not do all the simple things first. I'll tell them tomorrow morning and will post an update. How in the world do you find a good mechanic that is a good troubleshooter? I watch a program called Wheeler Dealers on Velocity and the mechanic, Edd China on the show is a very good mechanic and troubleshooter and always attempts to make a repair before just yanking things out and replacing them. Is there a list of some good mechanics that you know of in Oklahoma? I just looked at the registry on this site and saw 4 other Oklahoma cars but they are far from me. There is a guy with 175,000 miles on his car here in Oklahoma. I guess most people on this forum do a lot of work themselves. I sure hope you are right so I don't end up spending a bunch of money for nothing.
 
gplmaster said:
Is there a list of some good mechanics that you know of in Oklahoma?
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There is a damn good one just east of Dallas, his shop always has a few turbo Buicks in it...he is building my 10 sec engine now for my GN. Known him for about 15 years or more and has worked on several of my cars in the past. JL Enterprises, PM if you need his info if the location is close enough to you.
 
Word of the day is fuel.. fuel tank, pump, filter, injectors, lines ... change the oil along with a spring cleaning...:)..it used to surprise me that so many TTAs end up in the corner of the garage.. not anymore.
 
jarredsoon said:
hoser what happened with your car?
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The car ran great after the pushrod replacement and new coil and plugwires. It has been in storage all winter. The front fascia was backed into last summer and the body shop sent it away to get properly rebuilt. while they were at it , I had them fix what I thought was just a little rust bubble on the windshield pillar that ended up being a cut and weld job on both sides. The hood and fenders also received new paint to make sure it blended in. It looks awesome now, the front fascia was pretty ugly before. I am in the process of building our dream home and I hope there will be funds somewhere to go forth with a 48 x 60 shop this fall or next spring. For now , our garage will be able to handle our cars and trucks. I have been waiting forever to install the alchy kit ,turbo , hartland rockers and the rest of the goodies in the trunk.
 
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