Wiped cam?

[CutterTurboT]

My car has been making a ticking noise for about a year now...well last week I went to the track and noticed that the noise got louder...on the way home it got so bad that I had to have it towed home. I was getting about 5-12 deg. of kr on my scanmaster just driving slow at about 1700 rpms. The noise was coming from the passenger side head...I took the valve cover off and found that the #4 cly rocker arm and pushrod had a lot of play in it...some of the other rockers were loose but not as bad as #4. Is this signs of a wiped cam?

 

[blackbuick87]

That lobe may be bad, or at a minimum it sounds like the lifter has been eaten, which means metal in the motor. Pull the intake and check all the lifters, and that will give you a glimpse (albeit a bad one) of the cam and its condition. Sounds like a bad cam to me. Is it stock?

 

[blackbuick87]

I just saw the "heavy duty valve springs" in your sig.

Sounds like they may have been a little too heavy duty

 

[CutterTurboT]

The motor is stock and never been touched other than the new valve springs and it was making a slight sound before I changed them....they are the kirban stock replacement springs.

 

[Rob B]

You could have bent push rods. If you already have the valve covers off, go one step further and pull the rocker shafts off and remove the push rods. Roll them on a flat, clean surface and check for any "wobble". If you have a straight edge, use it too.

Make sure that the push rods you are checking while still in the engine and assembled, are under load. By this I mean, the cam has to be pushing on the lifter/push rods/rocker arms. This will make the valve assembly at it's highest tension. If the push rods are loose, that is not good. You shouldn't be able to turn them by hand while under load.

Safest bet is to pull the intake off and check your camshaft, push rods and lifters.

Hope that helps...

 

[blackbuick87]

Originally posted by CutterTurboT
The motor is stock and never been touched other than the new valve springs and it was making a slight sound before I changed them....they are the kirban stock replacement springs.

There was a thread on Turbobuicks.com about Kirban replacement springs, and they were tested on a valve spring compressor. The numbers proved that they were quite stiff, as in more than 20# stiffer than new stock springs

If you have a problem before putting them in, stiffer springs would have sped up the death of the cam (if thats what happened).

Dont see what would cause the puchrods to get bent, but you need to get the intake off and then we will know a lot more