Thread: 229 V6-- Need advice

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Thanks for the ideas, I'll need to hook up an external oil pressure gauge to check the cold vs. warm oil pressures, but I did run it for a few minutes one time with the left rocker cover off and it was squirting oil all over the valvetrain, so the pressure is likely to be OK. I tried pulling the plug wires one by one up on the distributor as they are hard to get at on the plugs, but any exposed terminal on the distributor just arced to the cap so loud I couldn't hear if it changed the tick sound

I'm going to put on a new distributor drive gear just for laughs, and if it still ticks after that I'll get it diagnosed by my local pro. If it's something as serious as a wrist pin or anything requiring head removal, I'll set the car aside until I can afford a nice small block V8, as I don't think the 229 is worth putting any serious time or any more money in to.

-Fordlords-

My local shop was able to have a look at the car today. They traced the ticking noise to the vacuum advance weights inside the distributor. The weights are on pins and the plastic bushings had worn out of the weights causing them to jump around and rap against the rotor shaft. They put some grease around the weights to confirm it was the noise and the noise was gone until the grease was flung off. They said they could repair it, but I told them to just go ahead and put on a rebuilt distributor, which they said was a good idea as there could be some wear in the gear and shaft also. Looks like the 229 will live a few more thousand

-Fordlords-