Getting the '72 back on the road

[defiance]

heyo - been a while.  My charger's been basically in storage for a while - more than a year - at 95% running (had it started but needed tune badly), and I finally realized... I'm just not going to drive this thing enough to keep it around

So I decided it's time to pay my dad back for all the help he's given me over the years

Decision made, I finally had the incentive to get working on the last few bits of tuning!  Not going as well as I'd hoped (of course), and I've taken a few steps backward...

So setting the stage, the engine had been put together and started, but hadn't gone through the cam break-in, and was running very roughly.

1st start ran for about 5 minutes and headers were starting to visibly glow.  Turns out my timing reference point was off by about 20* (the engine management is a sequential-injection coil-near-plug using LS2 truck coils).  It keys off a 36-1 tooth wheel on the crank pulley and a single-tooth in place of the distributor for polarity; the 'missing' crank tooth was set to about 90* btdc, and it was actually about 70*, so everything was firing WAY late.  So I adjusted the reference point, and it (of course) ran dramatically smoother.  I adjusted the fuel so I was getting about 13:1 AFR on the o2 sensor and started trying to break it in...

Right off the bat there was a bit of lifter clatter, but not severe to start with - figured I just needed to adjust the rockers a bit.  I used mobil-1 sythetic, with zinc additive added to it for break-in, and with a full oil-change standing by for when that part gets done.

At about 15 minutes the clattering starts getting louder, then upper-end hell breaks loose!  clatter suddenly gets really loud and firing into the intake on a cylinder.  Engine doesn't die, but takes me <2 seconds to shut it down, but needless to say I'm pretty nervous at this point. 


Sooooo I pull off the valve covers, and find a couple things --
1) big obvious one, passenger side rocker shaft broke.  Rear mounting bolt had backed out about 3/4" and it snapped.  Intake valve pushrod slipped up under the arm of the lifter, jamming the valve just slightly open at rest, leading to the firing into the intake.  Good news is there doesn't seem to have been any piston-valve impact, the pushrods are still perfectly straight (which was the big surprise to me), no visible damage to the rocker arms, and mounting bolt hole doesn't seem to have been harmed at all...  So it looks like the only casualty was the shaft.  New shaft should be here Friday.
2) as I'm inspecting everything afterward, I notice that several of the lifters are soft.  There was oil pressure throughout the earlier 15-minute run (not sure how much since I was just using the stock gauge which has no numbers), lots of oil in the top end when I pulled the valve covers like I would expect, so oil is definitely going through the engine.  The lifters are comp cams high energy lifters (came with a comp cams XE295HL kit), and this is all the use they've had ... but they did basically sit for something like a year.
3) not to mention I've got a 440source restrictive water pump housing and water pump...  surprise surprise, it was starting to build up some heat.  Course running 2000rpm in a garage (door open but the front of the car was well inside) while sitting still is a high-heat situation, but the car should still be able to handle it I'd think.  It's got dual 2000cfm electric fans with a custom shroud on an aluminum radiator.  It ran up to 190 in about 5 minutes at which point the thermostat and fans were running and it slowed, but it still made it to a touch over 200 by the time 15 minutes was up.   From the big thread it looks like maybe the restrictive housing isn't so bad but the pump is;  I've got a GMB water pump on its way; should be here tomorrow.


So I guess I've got a pretty good idea where to go from here for the cooling, and I think the shaft will be under control -- though I welcome any suggestions for things I should check before assuming those are OK.

But what I'm at a loss about is the lifters; These are comp cams lifters with nearly no run time on them, and there were 3-4 I found on a cursory examination where I could push the springs down a little by hand.  They're not on the same side or same section of the engine, they seem randomly spread around.  Could these really be bad with so little usage??   Or could something about the way I installed something have caused them not to pump up? 


I plan this evening to pull off the distributor and do an oil prime with the valve covers off to see if I can confirm oil out of all the pushrods & rocker arms.  I expect the "springy" lifters will fail that...  Just looking for ideas past that.

[Chryco Psycho]

If the engine was just running & you can depress the pushrods into the lifters then they are not holding pressure & need to be replaced , nothing you did installing them will hurt them so that they will not hold pressure . You need American made Johnson lifters !

[defiance]

Ack that's frustrating.  Things are brand new, but since I shelved the project warranty is gone...

I'm doing some searching on Johnson lifters and found their site, but can't seem to find any references as to where to get them..?

I thought comp lifters were US-made?

[justcruisin]

If the engine was just running & you can depress the pushrods into the lifters then they are not holding pressure & need to be replaced , nothing you did installing them will hurt them so that they will not hold pressure . You need American made Johnson lifters !

Yep, same deal, new comp hyd lifters, wouldn't hold pressure, had all kind of issues on cam breakin, motor generally ran like crap. Fitted up some hylift Johnsons, ran sweet.

[Brass]

Ack that's frustrating.  Things are brand new, but since I shelved the project warranty is gone...

I'm doing some searching on Johnson lifters and found their site, but can't seem to find any references as to where to get them..?

I thought comp lifters were US-made?

I'm not sure about Comp but Crower told me theirs are made in the US. 

[defiance]

I got the top end all pulled apart and primed it enough that the 5 'bad ones' pumped up yesterday evening, but this afternoon when I got home from work they were already completely down again - same 5 of course.

So where can I buy a set of johnson lifters?

[defiance]

Never did find anywhere to find Johnsons

Still, read some good reviews of howard cams lifters, so I picked up a set of those.  Problem solved   Also replaced the water pump and rocker shaft, set preload at 1/2 turn.

Put most of it back together yesterday.  Still a bunch of wrap-up work, but I got it far enough to start at least.  Man it sounds great

Til the crank trigger wheel epoxy I used came loose (since I'm running sequential injection and coil-near-plug spark).  Need to pull my crank pulley & trigger wheel back off and drill/tap a screw hole to hold it on properly.  Thought 3600PSI epoxy would be good enough, but obviously not. 

Oh well, can't complain when all the issues have been relatively easy to fix so far