I have a '59 Merc with the original 383 in it. Engine hadn't ran for years. I got the engine started, but it had a slight rattle in the valve train, which i ***umed was a collapsed hydraulic lifter. After taking the intake off, I discovered that someone through the years had replaced several (not all) of the original lifters with longer lifters. The odd lifters were appox 1/4" longer than the stock ones. I bought a new set of stock lifters and push rods, and installed those. After starting the engine, I am still getting lifter noise, and it's slightly worse than when I first started the engine. According to the old Motor's manual, it says to perform a clearance test between the rocker arm and valve stem. Do this by this special tool that wraps around the rocker arm and puts pressure down on the lifter end of the arm. I'll be damned if I can find a tool like this -- anyone heard of this, know where I can get one, or make their own somehow? The Motor's manual then goes on to say that if the clearance allows .218" feeler guage to be inserted in the gap, to install an oversize .060" push rod. If clearance is less than .078", a shorter .060" push rod should be installed. On one of my other Ford engines, we installed a set of lash caps to resolve a similiar issue. I was thinking of just buying a set of .080" lash caps from Jeg's and installing them on this Merc engine. Only concern here is that I could do some damage to the engine by a valve hitting a piston, snapping rocker arm shaft, etc. Thoughts or advice on how to proceed?
It's a ***** trying to see the top of the lifters in that thing when it's all together, eh? anyways, you might think about looking at the lifters when the intake is off, the valvetrain is in, go thru the firing order and see how far each lifter center is pushed down from the snap ring. I think you're aiming for about 1/16" to 1/8", perhaps 1/32 to 1/16" for a high rpm engine.
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