I had three exhaust valves that were diffcult to pull out and two of the three were almost impossible to pull out by hand. (Now that I think of it, it also the same valves (exhaust) sticking in my B/S engines for my lawn tools.)

Since I work so slow, I would guess 3 to 6 months and than after that the tank was removed the engine wasn't cranked over for about a year. (Ouch) That's when I found no compression in four out of eight cylinders.

The tank had been cleaned and coated by a local Raditor Shop, so I'm don't know what all they used but I had ran many tanks of gas though and had no problems, until this. The sender was removed during the cleaning and checked and in good working condition and I replaced the cork float with a brass float. (I don't know what happen to the brass float.)

Around here (Memphis, TN) it's been the small engines that are beening effected more than anything else, lawn mowers, boat motors, and ATV's.

Lately I heard that if you keep your gas tank full that less air with moisture will get into the tank and less chance of what they call fuel seperation and use a good fuel stabilizer.

Here's my two cents on 10 percent ethanol gas. I got a 1947 Packard from my father that he was going to restore, but never did. It sat around for many years before I got it. I had taken the gas tank off and the sended came right out with no problems and checked good. The tank was all gunked up, I had it cleaned out and the inside coated. All was well until my local COSTCO station swithed to 10 percent ethanol, I didn't think anything at the time. And I would go out and started the engine once a week and let it idle until it warmed up.

Than one day as I was walking out of the garage I thought that I could smell old paint. I looked under the Packard and found gas dripping from the gas tank. When I removed the gas tank I had to use vice grips to remove the screws from the sender and two of them broke off. I was shocked to see the bottom half of the sender was eaten away. Since than I haven't started the engine, now I am having to tear the engine down , I've all ready found two stuck valves. You can add this and the pictures to the affects of ethanol, and I won't get into how it's ruined my small engines.

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That got the exhaust lifter out but so far no luck with the intake. Also here's a picture of the lifter, notice the marks on it. So I'm guessing the guy who rebuilt this engine before tried his best to remove them.

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I inserted the nut insert, turned the bottom nut to compress the nut insert. Next removed the bolt and inserted a longer bolt though the valve guide with a slide handle.

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Next I took a bolt and made a nut insert tool with a nut insert to go inside the lifter.

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Okay, here's a little update on where I started and where I'm at. While removing the valves and hyd. lifters. Found the bottom part of the hyd. lifters stuck in both Exhaust and Intake for cylinder number one tappets.

As you can see by the picture there are marks on the block that were there before I started, so I'm guessing the guy who rebuilt the engine before, tried very hard to remove the lifters.

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Thanks for all the information, it is very helpful. I will keep you updated on the progress. Since I never heard any tapping from that cylinder. I'm thinking that, the check valve and plunger are working correctly and the only problem is that the valve body is not free to rotate and has to rotate with the Tappet.

I am going to give it another try with using a nut insert, I really don't want to take the cam out. If this doesn't work I will probably put it back together and than later this summer pull the whole engine.

This engine was suppose to have been overhaul by an old man (back in the 80's) that knew Packard engines, but the more I find wrong, the more I think he just threw stuff together.

I have found an excellent web site that explains how these Hyd. Lifters work, although it does talk about airplanes. It is very informative.

http://egaa.home.mindspring.com/engine3.htm

I had a problem with a tapping noise coming from cylinders 4 & 5. After letting engine set idle while working on the rear end and also learning about the dangers of 10 percent ethanol in the gas, I figured a valve job would take care of my problems.
The engine sat for over a year and I found four of the valves wouldn't close completely. So as I started removing the valves and hyd. lifters, found two of the exhaust valves all most impossible to pull out by hand.
The real problem is that I could not remove the hyd. lifters from cylinder number one. I was able to remove the exhaust lifter by inserting a nut insert (after removing the Plunger), screwing a long rod into the nut insert and with this running up the valve guild, put a slide on it and pulled it out. I tried the same on the intake but the nut insert keeps pulling out. Does anyone know of something that would grab the inside to help pull it out of the Tappet. (The Tappet is what rides on the cam.) Or can the Plunger cylinder be squeezed enough where it would break apart and be remove in pieces?
Or should I just leave it along since the tapping noise was coming from around cylinders 4 & 5 and assume that once the clearance is set it will be okay.

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Owen, it looks like I have the one on the left. Is it hard to change out?
Wes

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