1968 Colony Park 482

[FirstEliminator]

Piston pin bosses are a long distance away from the crank.

[Heo]

With a bearing looking like that i would tear it down

[FirstEliminator]

What causes a bearing to get polished like that?  A friend mentioned too tight will give it a polished look.

[Barry_R]

Might be a little tight.  Looks like a bit of dirt in the assembly.  Nothing really evil though, and not what is causing the ticking noise.
Fuel Pump? Timing chain sprocket misalignment?  Rocker system side clearance?

[FirstEliminator]

 While the crank is still savable, it's coming out.

[FirstEliminator]

Would a small amount of glycol contamination in the oil cause this type of bearing wear?   Small amount as in not visibly noticeable. 

[blykins]

The bearing really doesn't bother me either, but agree it's probably a little on the tight side.  I've seen similar bearings from all-aluminum tear-downs where we have to set the mains fairly tight because of block expansion when hot. 

What Barry mentioned reminded me of a Windsor that I built that had a ticky noise toward the front of the engine.  It was the mechanical fuel pump.  It was running on the dyno, not even being used because we hook up an electric pump, and it was ticking away.  I pulled the pump and put a block off plate on, and the noise went away. 

[FirstEliminator]

This 482 has efi, no fuel pump or eccentric. Just a big washer under the cam bolt to hold the pin in place. 

[Barry_R]

While I don't really care for the way those look - it ain't your noise issue.
You could polish those up with a brown paper bag and some WD40, reinstall them, and likely run for decades.
You are going to need to very very "eyes open" on disassembly to find your sound source...

[FirstEliminator]

I was pretty certain the bearings weren't the noise issue. The pictures of the main and rod bearings were the only two inspection samples that I removed. It's possible another bearing is worse off.  We have the potential for snow as soon as two weeks. If things hold off, we won't see road salt for a month or so. I'd like to have things back together before then to road test. Without setting road salt for a deadline, I would probably be doing this a week before Beaver Springs.  Hopefully with the moderate workload in the shop this week I can find time to get started on it.  A friend has a run stand set up for FE which I will use instead of the Colony Park with all it's accessories and long cast manifolds which are a very tight fit.

  Another issue is the 3/8 push rods. Some were rubbing on the intake manifold. Of the worst one I plugged the bottom of the hole and used a small rotary file to clean up where it was touching. Also, I moved around some rocker shims to help center the push rods in the holes. I didn't see any new marks where the push rods were hitting. But, I didn't run it for more than a 20 minutes after that. To further help that issue I ordered a set of 5/16 push rods which should be sufficient for 5500 rpm.

    Hey guys, thanks for the help and guidance.

[blykins]

I was pretty certain the bearings weren't the noise issue. The pictures of the main and rod bearings were the only two inspection samples that I removed. It's possible another bearing is worse off.  We have the potential for snow as soon as two weeks. If things hold off, we won't see road salt for a month or so. I'd like to have things back together before then to road test. Without setting road salt for a deadline, I would probably be doing this a week before Beaver Springs.  Hopefully with the moderate workload in the shop this week I can find time to get started on it.  A friend has a run stand set up for FE which I will use instead of the Colony Park with all it's accessories and long cast manifolds which are a very tight fit.

  Another issue is the 3/8 push rods. Some were rubbing on the intake manifold. Of the worst one I plugged the bottom of the hole and used a small rotary file to clean up where it was touching. Also, I moved around some rocker shims to help center the push rods in the holes. I didn't see any new marks where the push rods were hitting. But, I didn't run it for more than a 20 minutes after that. To further help that issue I ordered a set of 5/16 push rods which should be sufficient for 5500 rpm.

    Hey guys, thanks for the help and guidance.

Touching the pushrod tube isn't a sin.  Rubbing it hard enough to deflect the pushrod can get you into trouble.  Remember, pushrods can be "calmed" by leaning against something substantial.....a pushrod tube, a guide plate, etc.   I agree that a 5/16" diameter pushrod is absolutely adequate for what you need, but I don't think you were in trouble with the 3/8". 

[FirstEliminator]

For the heck of it, I tried the plastigage on the rod I have apart. It measured .002.  Using a 2-3 mic, the crank journal measures 2.2005. The mic was previously calibrated at the machine shop my father worked at. But that was quite a few years ago. The body of the mic was cool, which may have lead to it reading the extra 5-tenths. Or, it could be accurate. I didn't have a standard to verify accuracy. 

[blykins]

Crank journals should be undersized.....

A 2.200" BBC journal should be somewhere around 2.199x" and I generally see it down on the low end of that, i.e. 2.1991", 2.1992", etc. 

My guess is that your mic is out of calibration against a proper standard.

[Nightmist66]

Hydraulic cam? My guess is lifters. Did you try snugging up the adjusters a little to see if it would help? If the lifters are bad enough, sometimes when the lobe is on the base circle, you can easily push the rocker and pushrod down by hand. Had that on my old 390. Brand new Crower cam savers. Had a junk one out of the box. Just because parts are new, doesn't mean they are good. How much preload on the lifters?


As for the bearings, they are not horrible, but not perfect. Looks like some dirt or maybe the metallic substance you said was in the filter had something to do with it. Could prolly scuff them as Barry mentioned and reuse them...

[FirstEliminator]

During a nice phone conversation with Brent I was trying to explain the noise and I couldn't remember exactly what it sounded like and when. So, this evening I threw every thing together. Before the oil pan when on, I looked at every rod bearing and they are all the same, none are more or less shiney or discolored than the others. I put it together and it doesn't sound that bad now. There is a little bit of noise. I took some video. The noise doesn't seem to be any louder than the Windsor in my 69 Cougar which make a little noise----which also bothered me, but I have been running that for a few years and nothing has changed.
 
   Here is the video:
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pejcim4WyAU

    The only change made this evening is I removed the 3/8 push rods and installed 5/16. I don't recall what I did for preload on the lifters. I think I measured what a half turn is on a 460 rocker stud and added that to the adjustable push rod tool's dimension was during mock-up.

    Tomorrow, I will take the Colony Park out to lunch to see how it goes.