1969-1984 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Don,
Thanks for the encouraging words. I'm in north central MA and I'll be at the SOC. Fortunately I have another 99 to drive, although not as pretty, it will probably be the only Belgian car there though!
I did note something interesting tonight when poking around. At first I ran the car and listened with my stethoscope. The noise sounds like a mild rattle with a whirring noise. Basically like a whirring bearing or... a timing chain sliding across something. I pulled the valve cover and noticed that at certain cam positions there was a loud creaking noise coming from deep in the chain recess of the engine, possibly by the tensioner. The noise lasted from the mark at 0°TDC for about 45° of cam rotation, then again at 180° (on the cam) for about 45° of cam rotation. The chain is quite tight coming off the cam sprocket (where I can reach it), but it seems to tighten up (at least on the exhaust side of the engine) during the angles where the creaking takes place. It could be all in my head, but I'm thinking maybe the cam sprocket is bent or off-center and when it goes through a certain position it stretches the chain tight and pushes hard against the tensioner. I don't know if that explains why the noise goes away during deceleration though. I'm going to try to borrow a magnetic mount for my dial indicator tomorrow and see if I can check for some form of run-out along the cam sprocket. If that is the case at least I will have an answer but I'll have to pull the engine again. Unfortunately I've thrown in the towel on this car for the rest of the week and won't be able to bring it to the SOC this year.
I could always put the stock engine back in this car, but at 285,000 miles its a little tired and the amount of oil coming out of the breather due to blow-by is annoying. It still made gobs of power though!
posted by 68.112.254...
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