1962 390 Ford

What problems have you had with this engine, I just did a quick overhaul and did not true the bores nor change pistons as they did mic out with out to much out of round and well within tolerance. Anyway crank ground to 10 thou, new bears main and rod had the heads trued had to take 4 thou off and new seats. I have this weird noise which is a metallic clunk which seems to be coming from the front of the engine and it is not in sync with the rpm, has there been an issue with the cam ****on on this engine? Pulled the rocker covers all is OK fuel pump seems to be quite. I am thinking I will have to pull the timing cover to take a look see.
Thanks for your knowledge.

 

Just an idea,but it happened on my car..check to see if the harmonic balancer rubber isolator has worked loose.

 

Make sure your pullys are tight too.

 

Make sure nothing has fallen down in the fins of the generator or alt if converted . I had a similar problem once and a piece of gasket material fell into the generator and made a clicking sound . Also check what the others suggested before you tear it down .

 

With the original timing gear set there is a spacer in between the cam and cam gear and with the replacement gears the spacer is not used so if you reused it the fuel pump part hits some ribs cast in the timing chain cover,when I changed the timing chain on a 390 in my country squire the spacer looked like part of the cam and I left it on so after trying to figure out where the noise was coming from for a couple weeks it came back apart. A bad fuel pump will make noises on a FE motor too.

 

Jeff and others,, I have the timing cover off and the fuel pump looks OK and the timing cover is OK, putting a magnet into the pan brings up some very fine metal but on a new engine I expect that. The noise seems to start shortly after I start it and you will here a clunk similar to something hitting the valve cover or rapping on the timing cover and it is not constant comes and goes and seems to be worse at higher rpm but is not in sync with the engine, another thing I noticed is the engine will surge at idle and I am using an Edelbrock carb. I believe smart money says to take the engine out strip it done have the cyl bored and new pistons.