you should contact Gordamn not sure of the spelling, he is a member here and does a lot of side work
and he is in you neck of the woods

 

pull the heads. buy a valve spring compressor. replace the valve springs and check-clean up valve seats.

 

Again, thank you for all the guidance. Today I went back to the shop to make arrangements to get the car home. They convinced me to let them work up a price on replacing the cam with a new FT cam, lifters, timing chain, and gears. Although I didn't have time to actually look at the car (they had moved it out back pending my decision about the repairs), they showed me the lifter which was worn convex on the bottom. The pushrod was also bent. I also remembered I have a magnet plug as well as one of those sleeve magnets you stick to the oil filter, although they told me they hadn't drained the oil yet. They did say they thought they could see some fine metal particles in the oil when they pulled the stick. I left the car there as I figured it couldn't hurt to see what the price will be to have them do it. Thank you guys for continuing to try to help me.

 

Hi JB, Thanks for the reply. Just as side note to all the great advice I've been getting, the best info I could find about my particular car was that 2077 were produced in the canary yellow.

 

 

LOL...was it this one!

 

I have one of those posters myself.

We are here if you need us.

-Mark.

 

 

I have an 80 L82 and with 80K miles it was using oil and I wanted more power. The L82 is a good base to build on but with 80K miles I was also getting more piston slap from the forged pistons. After going back and forth I pulled the L82 and went with a ZZ4 roller cam motor. Best thing I ever did. Simple bolt in (have to change the rear flex plate or flywheel), more power, no worry about a non roller cam etc ...

This was several years back and more roller cam selections now. L82 still sits on a stand in the corner.

 

 

 

Hello Jstan2014, Thanks for checking in on me. If you remember from the original post I was quoted 5k for a crate motor install and 2800 for a roller cam replacement. The shop came back with a price of 1500 for a replacement FT cam, timing chain, gears, lifters, and one bent rod replacement. They also replaced the oil pump which turned out to be needed. It drove home fine, although I haven't really had it out since because of the weather. The oil didn't have obvious metal in it, but it had very very fine metal that looked like dust particles. Mostly it appeared stuck to the magnetic drain plug and in the oil filter, which could be seen in the oil after the sleeve magnet was removed. Although I never used a zinc additive, I forgot that I had always used one of those sleeves. Hopefully that captured a lot of it.

 

 

Good to hear....There are MANY flat tappet cams that go flat and are replaced with zero issues as long as there is not catastrophic engine failure and metal fragments in the oil...No issues with some metal dust................you should be just fine............

 

Just to follow up, today I was able to take the car out a really drive it. I opened it up a few times and it seemed to run pretty good. I ended up having to change the rear main seal recently due to it leaking, so that resulted in an additional oil change which hopefully flushed the engine some more. I also changed the brake booster because I was having trouble with my idle (believed there was a vacuum leak), and I was having peddle issues. Changing the booster definitely solved my peddle problem, but I am still having a stalling problem. It idles fine, around 1100-1200(high maybe?), but stalls when I put the car in gear. After driving for about 20 minutes, it stopped stalling in gear and idled at about 650-700, but occasionally would struggle then recover. When I turned the car off for about ten minutes, it went right back to stalling again when put in gear. I have a can of sea foam running through it now, but I'm guessing I will have to start with looking for a vacuum leak somewhere besides the brake booster. I do not have a lot of experience with carbs, but I figure I will have to do some reading.

I probably should have started another thread before mentioning this stuff, or even did some more research first (I didn't get a chance yet). But I figured I'd talk about here since some of you were so helpful while following my progress anyway.

 

Hello All, I just wanted to follow up on this thread since I now have been driving my L82 for a little over a year with the new cam. Even though I only take it out once every month or two, it has been running fine. The issue I mentioned in my last post concerning the stall out when putting the car in gear was mostly resolved by simply just driving it more and running a lot of carb cleaner through it. I guess the issue was just a gummed up carb due sitting too much. Since the shop I used had kept the price pretty close to the quoted $1500, I guess I made out okay. I know a lot of the members suggested trying the install myself, and I do like trying those kind of projects, however, my issue this time around was time. I just had too much going on and I didn't want the car to go into dormancy again like in the past. Lastly, I just wanted to thank everyone again for their guidance.

 

Thanks for bringing this thread up to date.