68EFIvert
Well-Known Member
I had a string of bad luck with the car lately. It started out with a short in a courtesy light that wasn't too bad to track down but did not stop there. Right as I found the problem with the light I started the car up and it ran great. The next time I started the car it started making a noise after a couple seconds of running. It ran really bad and gave me some different codes from the engine code reader. I could not find an electical issue so I called over the engine guy and we started diagnosing/taking apart the car until we found the problem.
We narrowed it down to a bad lifter or broken dog bone in the lifter valley. We ran out light before I could take the lower intake off. I did it the next day and found a broken dog bone that holds the lifter in place. Pretty frustrating since the engine only have about 1500 miles on it. The first 1000 miles was putting around breaking the engine in before the tune was set in the computer. I will be taking the engine out this week or next weekend. I just hope it didn't wipe out the custom cam. :rant I think the dog bone broke while idling in the garage so I hope it did not cause any collateral damage.
Anyone know why a dog bone would break? My builder recommend I buy tie bar lifters since he had an issue with them breaking in the past. I elected to just stay with Comp Cams lifters and OEM dog bones. That $200 in savings then is going to cost me over $1000 if I can save the cam and maybe over $2000 if I need a new cam and new tune on the engine. I have a new set of tie bar lifters, headgaskets, and all the other gaskets I will need on the way. I will take the engine down to the builder for him to look at the bearings while I am at it.
I will do a couple things while the engine is out. The first will find the damn oil leak that pisses all over my floor. The second is more fun. I think I will have the engine guy do a bowl blend on the heads. When I built the engine a couple years ago I skipped the tie bar lifters and a bowl blend, eveything else was overbuilt.
We narrowed it down to a bad lifter or broken dog bone in the lifter valley. We ran out light before I could take the lower intake off. I did it the next day and found a broken dog bone that holds the lifter in place. Pretty frustrating since the engine only have about 1500 miles on it. The first 1000 miles was putting around breaking the engine in before the tune was set in the computer. I will be taking the engine out this week or next weekend. I just hope it didn't wipe out the custom cam. :rant I think the dog bone broke while idling in the garage so I hope it did not cause any collateral damage.
Anyone know why a dog bone would break? My builder recommend I buy tie bar lifters since he had an issue with them breaking in the past. I elected to just stay with Comp Cams lifters and OEM dog bones. That $200 in savings then is going to cost me over $1000 if I can save the cam and maybe over $2000 if I need a new cam and new tune on the engine. I have a new set of tie bar lifters, headgaskets, and all the other gaskets I will need on the way. I will take the engine down to the builder for him to look at the bearings while I am at it.
I will do a couple things while the engine is out. The first will find the damn oil leak that pisses all over my floor. The second is more fun. I think I will have the engine guy do a bowl blend on the heads. When I built the engine a couple years ago I skipped the tie bar lifters and a bowl blend, eveything else was overbuilt.