For those of you familiar with the threads I've posted so far re. lifter
noise in my '81, I'm still in a quandry. Basically, I set out this morning
to set the valves at .006 per Boston Bob's recommendation, and check things
again in a week or so. I also wanted to visually inspect the heads, as this
is the first time I've had the rocker covers off. To make a long story
short, I ended up chickening out and putting it all back together. I
couldn't get comfortable with finding TDC (due to general inexperience), and
didn't want to risk setting the valves improperly as a result. However, I
noticed a couple of things that make me a little nervous about the motor's
current condition, especially according to info I've gleaned from the list
so far.
To recap, the motor at this point has approx. 2600 miles on it. The heads
are both AMF (probably GEX), and are both very clean, with the possible
exception of #3. I was told to look for burned-on oil spots signfying a hot
cylinder. There's no burned spot, per se, but the area beneath the valves is
"tanned" slightly. Also, the #3 plug had marked carbon accumulation in
comparision to the other plugs. What should I be looking for as the cause? I
suspect the valves were pre-loaded and that I've got air in one or more of
the lifters, and the majority of the "tapping" seems to be coming from the
vicinity of #3. Are these things related? On a side note, when I got the car
back together and fired it up, it sounded great... could it be
psychosomatic?
No, I haven't comp. or leak-down tested the motor yet (I don't have a
gauge), but it has no trouble hot-starting or cold-starting for that matter.
I guess I'd feel a lot more confident if I knew what these motors were
supposed to sound like in the first place! Thanks for your help and your
patience-

JJ

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