I feel like an ***....

downshifted on the freewayIm not sure if I hit 4th or 2nd but The rearend jumped, and the rev limiter kicked in. Now I have a pretty signifigant tapping from about 1200-2200 RPMS if im driving, but it doesnt tap at idle, or if I rev it in nuetral. The engine seems to be running normally.Any ideas?? Im really worried here, this car is my only means of transportation at the moment. Theres no SES light, and the engine isnt running very rough, just tapping.

 

good news is, if you bent some push rods, they r pretty cheap, and are extremely easy to replace. Pull coil packs, pull valve cover, pull rocker, and bam swap those rods and reassemble.

 

Can I cause any damage driving say...200 miles to do it at home?, Im at school now and dont have a place to work on it.

 

any more input? does anyone have a link to a site with specific instructions, including rocker nut torque specs, etc???

 

Its pretty simple to do even at your school, just take a 10 mm deep socket to pull the 5 bolts out of your coil pack, then once that is off, use a 8mm socket to remove the valve cover, then the same 8 mm socket to remove the rockers... from there you can pull the pushrods out easily and look at them! I torqued my rockers to 26 ft/lbs when I reinstalled them and just cranked the valve cover till it was tight

 

The stock rocker torque spec is only like 22 ft/lbs, but I torqued my roller rockers to 25 ft/lbs. Try to get a hold of a black impact type 8 mm socket; the rocker bolts are held with locktite from the factory and it's really easy to split a socket breaking them loose. It may be hard to see the bend in the push rods unless you roll them on a hard flat surface.

 

thanks guys i appreciate it. If anyone has similar problems and does a search and finds this thread, I happenednd upon this site earlier, pretty step by step.

http://joshker99.home.comcast.net/pushrods.htm

-Gordon

 

I bent 7 out of 8 push rods going from fourth to second. I thought I just hit the limiter while missing fourth. I have a hurst shifter and thought it was impossible to miss fourth. Oh well it is very simiple to fix. I would go ahead and replace them with hardend ones.

 

Question... If I replace with hardened rods, dont I stand a good chance of bending valves if this happens again??

 

Yes, you will. The hardened pushrods will not bend like the stock ones will. You will be bending valves next time if you do indeed install the hardened ones.

Jason

 

Ok next question... what is the likelyhood of me having bent valves at this point? And how will I know? My biggest fear is dropping in 16 new pushrods, and still having the tapping noise. How can I check for bent valves without pulling the heads?


-Gordon

 

compression test