OUCH ! Sorry to hear that, the roads took a real beating here in Ohio this winter too. Lots of craters and potholes needing to be fixed.

 

With the cam in place you acn do a limited visual but, micrometers are better than eyes and with lot'a lifter damage is it worth going back to gether with ut a closer inspection and once you pulled the cam to inspect, cams dont cost that much like a couple of good gasket kits?+

 

Blaise,

Happy Birthday!! Hope you are out celebrating...

I'm a little confused. Wasn't the loadest hold down bolt #7 intake when you first diagnoses’ it? Are you going to replace all lifters, or just the one you found bad?

I'd really like to see a picture of the one you found. I'll try to include a photo or two of some bad that I have worked on.

 

so now I will tell you the true, The pot hole was in mt own drive way [900' of cement] came back from a meeting an pulled a hole shot forgot about the new broken cement and here I am came to s--- and only f---ed. Happy birthday. But I should have my new tires tomorrow or Thursday and off again!

 

Eric,

No, you remembered correctly I think if anything I was the one who was confused. I had a really hard time isolating this noise. I plan on replacing all the lifters on both sides since I am already that far into it. Here is a picture of #5-I. I will take better ones when I get back from dinner.

 

Wow! Blaise, that's a pretty bad lifter. In your last picture you can see the flat spot worn into the roller surface. The spalling on the roller edge is only a small part of it. The cam lobe might very well have spalling on the roller surface. You may not be able to see the pits without some magnification and comparing it to a good lobe.

 

So, spalling is the term for what I referred to as the "small fractures" on the edges ? The spot on the opposite side of the spalling might be an oil bead because I looked for it and can't find it now. There are small areas along the edge of some lifters which are more shiny. What were these lifters doing in relation to the cam ? Were the rollers moving from side to side on their axles? I am trying to get my head around what was going on to make this happen. Is this a fatigue issue typical of a higher mileage lifter ? Valve float ? The rockers are non-adjustable OEM style. I can get a picture of the valve springs but they aren't the factory yellow springs they are a single coil style and gold colored.

I don't have a problem with pulling the cam out and looking more closely at it or replacing it if I need to since I am most of the way there already. I used one of those lights that have a magnifying lens built in, much like you see being used at a jewelery store when I examined the cam. I find it hard to believe that the noise could be so loud, appear on more than one lifter and not do any damage to the cam. I'm also puzzled as to why I only see this spalling on the drivers side (odd numbered) cylinders. Where did the metal from the lifters go ? Even though the pieces would be really small, I found no metal inside the oil filter (K&N).

The first things that come to mind are what caused this and what do I need to do to prevent it from happening again. I'm not sure if you can see it in the next picture but #3-E, #7-I and #7-E both show the beginnings of the spalling too. Not nearly as bad as #5 but its there.

The car ran a total of about 25-30 miles from the time I heard the noise. The previous owner claimed that he changed oil at 3,000 mile intervals using Mobil 1. I switched to Royal Purple when I bought the car. I've only put about 5,000 miles on it since I bought it and have done 3 oil and filter changes, 1 when I got the car home (DIC showed 50% oil life when I bought the car) and 2 others after that. Now I think I need to take a much closer look at the lobes or just stuff a new stick in to be safe.

 

Well Blaise I manage to dig through some old photos and found a few photos of a lifter and cam lobe that look worse than yours.

This one was making the same noise you have in your video.

Here is a little closer view.

This is the damage on the base circle of the cam lobe.

This is the damage on the noise of the cam.

This is normal wear pattern on a good cam lobe.

 

WOW !

I thought my lifters looked bad ...

My cam looks like the normal pattern photo on the bottom but without the lines on the shiny part where the roller makes contact with the lobe even on #5-I. I don't see any of the spalling or pits shown on the top pictures of the lobes.

Thanks for posting those pictures.

 

I should have added that there was a small amount of metal in the oil filter of the engine with the above lifter, but the bulk of the metal ended up at the bottom of the oil pan. I believe that the particals are large enough that the oil flow at the pickup tube can not pick them up and they just stay at the bottom of the oil pan. You may want to see if you can push a thin lint free rag up into the pan through the drain plug to see if you pull out any small chips. If you don't find any chips that would be a good thing, if you should find chips and depending on how much, you may want to pull the pan.

 

Thanks for the suggestion Eric, I will try that.

I did strain my oil through a piece of cheesecloth tucked into a funnel after i dumped it into a clean drain pan. No measurable amount of metal in it, for sure no chunks or pieces big enough to see. More like a gritty substance you can feel when you rub it between your fingers. Not enough to even guess as to an amount ... not enough to cover the tip of a strong magnet about the size of a pencil eraser. I also dragged a bigger and stronger magnet around in the oil to see if that would pick up anything.

 

any chance you can send me a link to this video so I can hear what it sounds like?? Thanks in advance, Doug

 

No problem.