Ok here we go. Kinda long but don't want to forget any info and stuff already tried. Completely rebuilt 1968 Buick 400. New pistons. bored. crank turned. 010/.010 rods resized. block line bore good. New Lunati cam mild under 220@.050. Guides replaced as needed. No knurling. Cut down for added lift with positive rubber/Teflon boot seals New std timing set. New lifters. Hyatt Johnson New pushrods New rocker shafts with new rockers. Std New 90 lb springs set height. All valve stem heights exactly the same. Preload set at .040 Hardened exh seats. New cam bearings. Oil pressure at idle 35 at rpm 65 New oil pump assembly. Engine had a tick in it down in the lifter valley (drivers side) when the customer brought me the car to listen to before the build. Told him sounded like a weak lifter or cam gone bad with today's oils after 100,000 miles of use in this long a time. Bought it this way years ago he said. Now It still has the same lifter valley area ticking after the total rebuild and only 2 or 3 making the noise. Driver side. So after I told him to drive it for a couple hundred miles.... Still the same deal. Pulled the intake & Replaced all the lifters with a different brand, Sealed power. but still Buick part number. Same noise in my shop. Then replaced all the pushrods with a slightly longer ones. same noise. And Runs like a scalded dog. No other issues. no excessive wear issues noticed. told him to drive it some more & change oil a few times. Another 1000 miles. Still there. So now I have the engine back in my shop and have it tore down to the rotating assembly left in the block and everything else out. Not one hint of particle contamination in the pan. Clean as a whistle. Can't find any issues. Ring seal is all the way to the edge of the piston tops. Cam mic's with in tolerance. Preload is great. no wear in the rocker tips. One thought. Seems like the Buick shaft assemblies don't get a lot of oil up top like no shaft assemblies? If I pull the rocker shaft bolt out however they do squirt all over the fender covers. But the noise in down in the lifter valley area. D.S. Front of the block area. I have search this forum all the way back to 2005 posts and see this is a somewhat reoccurring issue with Buick V-8's. But don't seem to find any solutions in any of the posts. This is a stock rebuilt with a mild cam upgrade. Soooooooooooooooooo. How do i fix the reoccurring problem as my customer is not a happy camper even though I told him from all the complaints on this forum board, this seems to be an issue with some Buick's. Let the answers or questions begin. Help.
OK,here goes.Since its a 400 there is some incompatability with lifters, pushrods,and rockers if you upgraded to 70 style for those or a combination of those,so we need to know which parts your using.The 67-69 oiled the rockers thru the head and the 70's thru the pushrods.The driver side lifters on all motors get oiled from the front of the block after going around a groove in the front cam journal.A common problem is that the front groove gets plugged with bearing material from the front cam bearing when excessive oil pressue is had because the oil pump drives off the distributor gear which puts too much pressure on the front cam journal.then oil doesn't get to the drivers side lifter galley and oil doesn't get to the rockers either.what weight oil are you using.? whats the oil pressure at rpm?Did you use the backgrooved cam bearings from TA? Also,did you use a double row timing chain? sometimes they hit the fuel pump arm if it wasn't clearanced. Sorry for all the ??? but more info is needed. gary
What type of lifters did you say you have in there now? Are they the Sealed Power HT 969's? Try using TA's GM style lifter, they seem to be quieter than others. I've had good luck with using Chevy style lifters in my 350 GS, But you'll need adjustable pushrods, or roller rockers to compensate for the Chevy lifter plunger being approx. .050 deeper than the Buick style.
I stated std chain assembly. Yes, all the parts replaced match the factory pieces taken out. Even the pushrods and all parts on the rocker shaft assembly. All thru the block with no oil holes in the top of the lifters. No feed holes in the pushrods. Same as stock. All 1968 stuff. Cam bearings look great. I have blown air thru all the oil passages in the block to the passages and no restricted felt. Even thru the heads too. Stuck wire rod into/thru holes also. There was NO material in the pan. Checked lifter bores for clearance. OK. Cut open the filter, None there either. This has exactly the same noise in the same location as before I rebuilt it. Have another set of cam bearings that I'm gonna back groove but the original bearings were the same as the replacement bearings. But original before rebuild issue remains. BTW: I had the customer remove the fuel pump and run it for a short. Same slight ticking was still there. Had it on a rack and no noise in the pan area. Thanks for the response. Next.
Let me back up. I had Sealed Power to begin with and then installed Hyatt Johnsons. Noise never went away but was reduced somewhat. HT 869 part number. This is a customer car and don't need to get into adjustable valve train and get away from the original intent. Buick didn't have adjustable and built hundreds of thousands of V-8's. Plus if it doesn't fix it i have thrown even more money down the drain and still the same issues. I am already into it for way more then I made trying to make the customer happy. First time in 40 plus years with this type of deal. I am a machine shop. Thanks for the response and weighing all posts.
Sounds like your on the verge of a fairly commmon problem with the BBB and fast rate camshafts- noisy valvetrain at say 1100-1800 rpm.. Typically, it's more than just a couple lifters, but it is more common to be on the LH side of the motor, when you get a grind that is "right on the edge" of the hydaulic lifters ability to follow the grind, and stay pressurized. If someone came into the shop with a Luanti cam, and had that complaint, I would just nod my head and say "yep, they make that noise". At this point, change the cam.. I recommend a TA Performance STG 1 455 cam for that application, get his good Delphi lifters while your at it. It will cost you more than what your used to paying for lifters, but they are known to be the quietest ones out there now.. he bought out Delphi here a while back on those lifters, when they went out of production. TA (480-922-6807) Good luck JW
A long shot, but I thought I had a noisy lifter and it turned out to be my dipstick tube getting hit by the rotating assembly. I am still working on fixing it, but when I pulled the tube out it was obviously struck by the crank or connecting rod. I ran it with the tube out and it was quite as can be.
I agree with Jim as well... I have some engines with a popular Mfg cam & lifters, noisy on start up until oil is up ... Check your Oil pump gear clearance .002-.003 also make sure the shaft clearace isn't too loose . this will cause loss of oil preesure @ idle . Easy fix with a wear plate kit . I have had this problem in the past Nick
My advice to your customer when I was 16 years old would have been," Don't like the noise, turn up the radio!" :Brow: With my very limited experiance now, all I can offer is to make sure it isn't in fact an exhaust leak at the manifold. That's kind of a rookie mistake though and you don't sound like a rookie. I hear Jim and Gary know one or two things about these engines. I'd consider their advice pretty trust worthy.
Yes we did the manifold to head deal. Even the pipe to exh manifold. Wasn't it.\\ Dipstick isn't the issue. Oil pressure is great. 35 lbs at idle. used HD 30 to break in with Zinc additive. have tried 10-40 and also 20-50 no difference. Will check into the cam and delphi lifter deal. Noise isn't as noticeable as much when cold. But there. More so when warmed up. Just strange that I have the same one or 2 lifters on the drivers side front as before it was totally rebuilt. And replaced a second time with a different brand of lifters. Not loud but still there at and idle and even when you slowly take the rpms up. But not as noticeable as you rev it but when your cruising the exhaust is quiet and you can barely hear it in the car.
I have found that with many of the lifters today the quality control sucks and we've had to take apart and clean them before installing.This is standard practice for me now on any motor I do for anyone. gary
my 430 aluminum rockers and shafts were worn big time. i was also chasing valvetrain noise. I eventually found that the rockers were not tight on the shaft. that cured my noise.
