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'55 engine back to life! Mostly worked...
#1
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Bob E.
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After almost 2 years, I finally was at the point where I could start my '55 Patrician again. Since that time I had the engine redone and I cleaned up the front end, suspension etc. a lot. I intend to add some before and after pictures to my blog soon. So here is what happened:

Config:
Rebuilt engine
new pistons & rings (+0.30), new main (+0.020), rod (+0.010), cam bearings,
New timing chain and gears,
Same camshaft, new JB-879 lifters,
New valve springs, spring retainers, & exhaust valves,
High volume oil pump (a la Jack Vines),
Driveshaft removed, on jacks, front clip removed,
Non-working generator installed (no regulator),
Negative ground, new coil, (-) terminal attached to distributor, new dist cap, fairly new wires, new Champion H-10C plugs,
Radiator installed in temporary manner, water pump rebuilt, new t-stat installed.
Carb rebuilt, added electric fuel pump, new gas lines, fuel tank cleaned, etched, sealed;
Starter and solenoid rebuilt, Harmonic dampener set to 5deg BTDC, dist rotor set to #1, engine verified that #1 is at TDC.
Vacuum advance from carb plugged., BTV check valve plugged. Vac line for wipers used for vacuum gauge.
Oil full with Break in Oil (Maxima Performance Break In oil, 10W30),
7 quarts of Type F tranny fluid added (as per manual ).
Used hex rod and spun oil pump many times over the last few weeks and verified that oil was dripping from side of each rocker arm. Turned engine 720deg, stopping every 90 deg and spun oil pump to get all parts lubricated.

Instrumentation: Vacuum gauge, Multimeter set to RPM, timing light, analog tach/dwell meter, new pressure sensor and new temp sensor from Heinmuller. Pressure sensor is ganged to another one for later use in electronic Arduino board acquisition system.

Pre-run: put ~1 gallon of gas into tank along with K100 water remover additive. Used electric fuel pump to pump ~3/4 gallon of gas through gas lines and out at connection to mech fuel pump (to clean out any junk from tank and new fuel lines). Discarded gas.

1st Run: Turned on electric fuel pump and filled carb inlet bowl. Cranked and it started immediately! Immediately heard pronounced metallic grinding/ticking noise so shut down. Looked but couldn't find any source of something loose or anything obvious. Seemed like it was coming from the back of the engine/tranny area.

2nd run. Restarted but with ears near flywheel and tranny and confirmed that is where noise is coming from. Didn't sound like solenoid sticking and grinding with flywheel but definitely in that area. Shut down. Checked tranny fluid and was below L so added 2.5 more quarts (total of 9.5 in tranny). Neither analog tach nor Multimeter on RPM (or Dwell) setting would provide meaningful readings. (both hooked to (-) coil term plus ground). Timing light showed significantly advance timing suggesting that mech advance was engaging (meaning was at higher RPM than intended)

3rd run. Started with grinding but then moved shifter to next detent and noise went away (never came back) Engine ran well. RPM was high as I was guessing without reliable tach, Vacuum was about ~19In HG. Sustained run and manually varied RPM to help seat rings. Water leak developed at thermostat housing and grew. Valve/lifter metallic tapping noise heard throughout. Ran for ~10 minutes and started to get hot. Radiator cap wasn't on and water started to boil over. Shut down and was treated with a geyser from radiator. Let cool for a couple of hours and replaced paper gasket for t-stat housing with homemade cork one. Filled with water and coolant (probably 70:30), verified good oil level still.

4th run. Took a few tries to start as I messed with dist and timing. Once started, the analog tach started working and was at ~2500+rpm. Adjusted down to 1500rpm, tweaked dist and was able to nail 5deg BTDC with timing light. No coolant leaks, varied RPM between 1500-2000rpm for about 20 minutes. Temp slowly climbed and got to 75% Hot level. Oil Press slowly DECREASED and ended up fairly close to L. Valve/lifter noise was still evident throughout, No issues when shut down and remaining coolant level seems about the same as when I started. Oil was about a ?" below F line (was at F when started the day). Played with mixture ratio screws a tad to maximize vacuum and got to about a steady 18inHG vacuum in this RPM range (1500-2000). Engine ran okay, rougher than I remember and accel stumbled. Didn't spend too much time adjust mixture setting and didn't play with dwell at all. Pulled plug #4 and seems like it looks about right in color.

So I got to where I wanted to be with the 4th run. A few questions in my mind:

1. When is the break in oil done? Total run time today was probably ~30 minutes. Range of internet answers from change it now to drive it for a while etc. Planning on replacing with Rotella when the time is right. When is it right? It's not as clean as when I put it and more gray in color with maybe some very fine particles in it.
2. I'm concerned about the Oil Press level. It was unreliable before and that was the main reason that I tore the engine down and had it redone. I assumed the high volume pump upgraded would give a lot of pressure. Maybe the rings are still seating etc so a lower P is ok for now???? Pulled off left rocker arm cover the next morning and there was evidence of oil throughout bottom of head, but top of head was dry. (i.e. oil was dripping, not spraying inside rocker arm cover)
3. Surprised at the tapping sound, as I would have figured that it would have quieted soon after start up but it was still evident after the long run.
4. Have I done enough break in with the car on jacks? I would think the next step is to fine tune at idle and smooth it out, reconnect drive shaft and drive it with the front clip off for a bit.
5.Other thoughts??

thanks for reading
-Bob

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Posted on: 2018/7/23 21:28
Bob
1955 Packard Patrician
Sapphire Blue
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Re: '55 engine back to life! Mostly worked...
#2
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jfrom@kanter
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If pressure was low before rebuild you should have diagnosed cause upon disassembly, did not see any conclusions. Currently you have low oil pressure, what was reading at 1500 rpm. Did you check with mechanical gauge??


In our shop we do not take the precautions you have and never had any engine failures/problems. We lube all engine parts with an oil/STP mixture as assembled, tappets/cam brushed with cam break-in fluid, just use regular oil for first 30 minutes then drain and replace examining used oil for metal particles, fuel system not flushed unless car has been sitting for years or evidence of sediment, carb not primed.


Engine cranked with starter and ususally fires up within 3-4 revolutions. After 10-15 seconds the lifters are full and engine runs silently. IF THERE IS ANY CONSTANT OR LOUD/NOTICEABLE NOISE THE ENGINE IS SHUT DOWN AND DIAGNOSED.



The noise you have is an indication of a problem, it may be the torque converter nuts are loose on the front side of the flywheel, elusive sound in the area you describe. But it may be lifter to cam noise, did you check that lifters rotate freely in lifter bores, this causes almost immediate lifter/cam failure.

Thanks
James From
Kanter Auto Product

Posted on: 2018/7/24 9:16
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Re: '55 engine back to life! Mostly worked...
#3
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64avanti
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A missing oil gallery plug could explain the low pressure & lifter noise? More common than you would think. If the oil gauge is accurate, does the pressure rise to acceptable with more RPM & how many revs?

Posted on: 2018/7/24 16:48
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Re: '55 engine back to life! Mostly worked...
#4
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Bob E.
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THanks for the comments so far. I'm sure there will be more to come (hopefully). In the meantime, I will crank it up this weekend with an external oil pressure gauge to better track pressure and pressure vs rpm.

When I put the new lifters in, they seem to slide in easily and had the ability to rotate. Not sure about how to easily check an missing oil gallery plug?

From James' comments, I should drain the break in oil, check it out, and then fill will regular oil (i was thinking of using Rotella).


I'll report back this weekend.

thx
-Bob

Posted on: 2018/7/25 11:33
Bob
1955 Packard Patrician
Sapphire Blue
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Re: '55 engine back to life! Mostly worked...
#5
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Bob E.
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Here is some more info.

After being gone a week, I started it up again to warm the engine then drained the break in oil. Also drained the water in the radiator and filled with ~50:50. To see what was in the oil, I drained it through a white t-shirt and you can see what was left. Nothing really solid, almost graphite like in texture. Fished around in the old oil with a magnet and nothing significant was there. Also stuck the rod with a magnet on it inside the oil pan with similar results.

Filled with 5 qts of Rotella T4 15W-40 and for kicks took off the rocker arm covers to check them out. Oil was evident throughout but I was shocked to find a valve keeper laying in the passenger rocker arm! During assembly I realized that I somehow lost one so I bought some more and replace some of them with the new ones. I checked carefully and every valve still has 2 keepers, so somehow the lost keeper was 'lost' inside the spring and worked its way out.....

Started it back up with an OTC brand oil gauge Tee-d to the existing pressure sender unit. Engine runs great. Oil never got close to L and temp was solid.

Here are some oil pressure vs rpm measurements:

RPM Oil Press - psi
450 30
700 50
900 50
1000 57
1500 62
2000 68
2500 72
3000 78

Gauge on dash looks good to at low rpm so I feel good that this is working properly.

One lingering problem is the transmission. Recall that the driveshaft is removed. When I started it today, there was the metallic gear 'meshing' sound. I moved the shifter from Park to Neutral and it got a little quieter. When I moved it to any other gears (D, L, R) there was no objectionable sound. As I came back to N, it started again. It sounds just like a standard transmission car when trying to get it in gear when the engine is not quite at the right speed for the clutch engagement. Sort of repetitive teeth to teeth hitting sound. I very slowly moved from D to N and the sound went away and was gone from N to P.

Any thoughts on this? the car hasn't been driven in 2 years. My next plan is to connect the driveshaft and take the car around the block but don't want to do any damage if there is something I need to do first with the Ultramatic

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Posted on: 2018/7/31 22:36
Bob
1955 Packard Patrician
Sapphire Blue
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Re: '55 engine back to life! Mostly worked...
#6
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Bob E.
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I've been playing around a little more with the engine, trying to get a smooth idle etc. Along with that, I did a comparison of oil pressure from my OTC gauge (plumbed with the existing oil pressure sender) against the dash gauge.

The reason I get spooked is that at idle (~500rpm) the dash gauge barely reads above L. The OTC gauge shows about ~30psi there which seems like that is plenty at idle.

Is this normal for your car?


Separately, there is this metallic almost hollow knocking sound that occurs at the crankshaft speed. It speeds up and becomes less noticeable as rpm is increased and most pronounced when rpms are reduced to idle. (Oil is at F, and good pressure). The sound seems to be coming from inside the engine as I can hear it more clearly through the oil fill tube when I take the breather cap off. I have an audio recording of it which I can send but that file type won't upload here. I seem to remember it being there before I had the engine rebuilt. Any thoughts?

thanks again for reading and all your comments.

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Posted on: 2018/8/4 12:57
Bob
1955 Packard Patrician
Sapphire Blue
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Re: '55 engine back to life! Mostly worked...
#7
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John
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Hollow knocking sounds from inside the engine are almost never a good thing!

Posted on: 2018/8/4 14:56
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Re: '55 engine back to life! Mostly worked...
#8
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Bob E.
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A few more bits from today's troubleshooting:

The frequency of the noise coincides with the light pulse on my timing light. I removed the engine oil dipstick and the mechanical fuel pump and noise was still there (used the electric pump I installed to power car). Also, the noise is not evident when I start the engine cold. It starts to appear after 30 sec - 1 min as the engine warms. Noise seems to fade as rpm is increased from 450rpm @ idle to higher, but returns noticeably as return to idle (I attribute to the engine noise drowning out this other noise). When I put my hand on the deep end of the oil pan, I believe that I can feel something when I hear the noise, but it is a subtle difference.

Going to try to focus my efforts to pinpoint the source of the noise before tearing into the timing chain cover etc.

-Bob

Posted on: 2018/8/5 18:43
Bob
1955 Packard Patrician
Sapphire Blue
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Re: '55 engine back to life! Mostly worked...
#9
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R H
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Piston slap. Or rod bearing.

Posted on: 2018/8/6 1:44
Riki
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Re: '55 engine back to life! Mostly worked...
#10
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64avanti
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"The frequency of the noise coincides with the light pulse on my timing light"
This would indicate Cam speed, not crank speed. I have had flakey lifters do this before.
When Packard built Merlin engines, they were test run, disassemble & inspected, then re assembled & run again.
What a great way to spend the day!
Best wishes.

Posted on: 2018/8/6 8:40
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