Collapsed Lifter Syndrome

Posted by Gary On 2011/9/13 10:32:29

Here's the story. The PO told me on the telephone before I committed to the purchase that in the 8 years that he had owned the car, the '53 had always had a slight putt, putt, putt, putt, putt sound at the tail pipe. We continued to discuss it in more detail when I arrived to pick the car up. As we went around to the back of the car and I held the palm of my hand up to the pipe, he went on to explain that it ran so smoothly going down the road that he just never worried about how it sounded on an idle. We had already finished a "test drive" and I had noticed a very, VERY slight "roughness" in the idle when we pulled up to a traffic light or stop sign. What I noticed more was the steady tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap metallic sound coming from the right side of the engine after we lifted the hood. I was trying to remember if the 327 had hydraulic or solid lifters but knew that either way, my mind was made up and I would deal with the outcome eventually. I went out after dinner last night and pulled the plugs, checked the burn and commenced with performing a compression test. All the plugs were a little "sutty" around outter rim and electrodes appeared to be a little tan on one side to brown on the other but no indication of oil burn. Compression ranged from about 105 to 120 except for a 90 on the 4th cylinder back. IMO, I see that as an indication of the cylinder with the collapsed lifter and the fact that the valve has not been fully opening for so long that it's probably not closing tightly. Regardless, I'm not really wanting to pull the camshaft and associated parts just to retrieve one defective lifter and wondering if anyone has a suggestion short of devine intervention that might convince that one lifter to pump up again. I performed a search on the subject but struck out so it appears that the hydraulic lifter equipped sraight 8's are fairly trouble free. Any thoughts or ideas on the subject?