Thread: Car has been parked for an extended period of time...

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Originally Posted by Blow by

You should at least take off the valve covers and see if you have a stuck valve or lifter.

Considering I thought I heard the sound on the drivers side down low, I debated draining the oil and checking the rods... however, the valve covers were easier so that's what I did.

I pulled the passenger side cover to find the following:


The red "arrows" (hey, I did that with my camera - lol) show where I have two bent pushrods. All the other pushrods appeared to be fine. So at this point I'm wondering if the corresponding valves are so stuck that they bent the pushrods? after I removed all the pushrods I was able to hear the motor rotate without any strange noises, so I'm guessing the bottom end is good. I was able to watch in the spark plug holes the pistons move up and down.

Overall, I had a productive afternoon.

After some oil and some tapping on the valves, I'm able to get all of them moving. On the two indicated though, they will compress then rebound slowly. I've got them coated in some of the marvels mystery oil and want to see if they improve.

Has anyone done the same, or am I wasting time when I should just yank the heads and take 'em to the machine shop?

Thanks again guys!

I had a '65 Rambler with a 196 ( solid lifter engine ) that had 1 sticky valve. stuck open once long enough that when the preassure was let off the pushrod, the pushrod slipped out from under the rocker and caused a dead cylinder.. soloution was to put it back togther, adjust the valves and hold preassure on the rocker with my finger while it was running, until it freed up... this should work for you too but it really should get taken care of.. in my case, it was a daily driver, that was ( at the time ) arleady laid up too long.

Excuse my ignorance, but is the Ford 390 a solid lifter engine? I was thinking not which begs the question as to whether the lifter won't "pump up" when trying to counter the pressure of not only the valvesprings but also the "stick" in the valve stem.

I'll look at them again tomorrow, and if I'm not 100% sure they are good to go I'll yank 'em off. I just don't want to get caught in the downward spiral of "well, since the intake and heads are off, might as well throw a cam in it...since you're putting a new cam might as well throw a new (insert $$$ here)" lol!

Basically I wanted to do the bare minimum to get her running again...but it looks like that's not gonna be the case. I'll roll with it though...

I know that the Ford 144-250 I6 uses FE lifters and they are non oil thru hydraulic lifters.. they don't have the oil thru hole for oil thru pushrods, the rocker shafts provide that oil.. so I'm pretty sure your FE 390 is hydraulic

Based on that, they are definitely hydraulic.

I didn't get a chance to work on the car yesterday, but maybe today...

Thanks Matt, you've been a big help.

uppster - I would never leave something loose laying in the oil pan. One good speedbump and *boom*

rclarke - While I see your point and I agree, I hadn't even planned to do THIS much with this engine. Long term plans for the car include an engine swap from a modern car. I wanted to get the engine running to get a feel for the rest of the car before I start investing larger amounts of money. Additionally, I have not yet obtained an engine hoist. The car only has something like 76k miles on it, and all the issues I've discovered so far are from it just sitting for so long.

Now it looks like I really don't have a choice.