ChrycoDUDE
Well-Known Member
I'm trying to get a bead on this issue. I wonder if anyone would venture to take a guess at it.
So the other day I'm driving my 70' 383 down the highway, about 80mph when I start hearing a very light tapping sound. It was extremely light, but since I know my car very well, inside and out..I could hear it. Soon it got a bit louder, but not quite loud enough to where I could immediately identify what it was so I got off the highway and pulled into an Autozone parking lot and turned the car off. I thought at that point that maybe the fan shroud had come loose again and the fan blade was hitting it. So I started the car up again and the tapping sound had disappeared. I get in, drive off and get back on the highway. As I accelerate up to speed the tapping noise returns. Now I'm concerned. I decided to come back home. On the way home the noise continues until I have to get on an off ramp that makes a very sharp curve to the right. At that point the tapping stops all together and the engine begins to run extremely rough, as if it dropped a cylinder...like one cylinder has a dead plug. So the engine is firing on seven cylinders rather than eight. So It runs this way all the way back into my garage.
My guess is a lifter is collapsed...maybe more than one. This has happened before....two or so years ago. I had to take apart the top end and replace all the lifters...had one lifter with a concave head. I replaced with new lifters, fired it up, chatter went away. However that one noisy lifter never affected how the engine ran. It ran fine in fact.
So again I'm thinking another collapsed lifter...very damaged and I'm thinking that explains the rough (very rough) idle? I've got great compression in the cylinders..each is between 115 and 120psi when I checked yesterday. That was my main concern.
Comments? Am I on the right track? I've fiddled with Mopars for awhile now. I've got tools and stuff...but that doesn't make me a bonafide mechanic, lol.
So the other day I'm driving my 70' 383 down the highway, about 80mph when I start hearing a very light tapping sound. It was extremely light, but since I know my car very well, inside and out..I could hear it. Soon it got a bit louder, but not quite loud enough to where I could immediately identify what it was so I got off the highway and pulled into an Autozone parking lot and turned the car off. I thought at that point that maybe the fan shroud had come loose again and the fan blade was hitting it. So I started the car up again and the tapping sound had disappeared. I get in, drive off and get back on the highway. As I accelerate up to speed the tapping noise returns. Now I'm concerned. I decided to come back home. On the way home the noise continues until I have to get on an off ramp that makes a very sharp curve to the right. At that point the tapping stops all together and the engine begins to run extremely rough, as if it dropped a cylinder...like one cylinder has a dead plug. So the engine is firing on seven cylinders rather than eight. So It runs this way all the way back into my garage.
My guess is a lifter is collapsed...maybe more than one. This has happened before....two or so years ago. I had to take apart the top end and replace all the lifters...had one lifter with a concave head. I replaced with new lifters, fired it up, chatter went away. However that one noisy lifter never affected how the engine ran. It ran fine in fact.
So again I'm thinking another collapsed lifter...very damaged and I'm thinking that explains the rough (very rough) idle? I've got great compression in the cylinders..each is between 115 and 120psi when I checked yesterday. That was my main concern.
Comments? Am I on the right track? I've fiddled with Mopars for awhile now. I've got tools and stuff...but that doesn't make me a bonafide mechanic, lol.