4.6 engine had blown head gasket. right side. Pulled heads had checked for cracks and resurfaced. Reinstalled heads, but I still have a problem with oil pressure on right side. Chain doesnt seem to tighten and lifters rattle.There is good base oil pressure. Any suggestions?
If the head gasket was wrong or incorrectly installed this can happen. It is easy to do on some cars, the oil supply to the head is blocked or restricted.
Head gaskets sometimes look symetrical and can be installed backwards but looking at the illustration on Rock Auto it wouldn’t be possible on this one.
I’m not sure about Rock Auto, but some sites have a generic photo of a head gasket, and many other parts that are so similar.
Yosemite
Rock Auto illustrates the actual part. In fact they illustrate all the different brands individually.
Back in the day…The Ford “Y” Block engines, 272,292,312,…The camshaft bearings would sometimes rotate in their bores, cutting off the oil flow to the rocker arms…Mechanics developed a work-a-round where they ran an external oil line from a fitting on the filter mounting plate to the studs that secured the rocker covers (special hollow studs with Banjo fittings) These external oil lines then provided oil to the rocker shaft, valves and push-rods…This fix saved tearing the engine down…Just something to think about…
I had 2 of these Fords and had to do this to both of them. They used a rocker arm shaft that all the rocker arms rode on rather than individual rocker arm balls.
Question for autoschrank - did you have oil pressure problems before you pulled the heads?
Asfar as I know there were no oil pressure problems before the head gasket concern.
After you got it back together and started it how long did you run it? The reason I ask is on an overhead cam engine with hydraulic valve lash adjusters (lifters) in the heads, when you pull the heads and then reinstall them you introduce air pockets into the oil passages that lead to the lifters. This air gets pumped into the lifters and makes them temporarily partially collapse. Running the engine for a few minutes will usually pump this air out and things will quiet down. Are you sure you have oil pressure problems in the right head? I can’t think of any reason why one head would be affected and not the other.
I ran it long enough, even tried to drive it about 5 or 6. miles. The lifter noise only got louder. Somebody posted something about a relief valve in the top of the head getting stopped up with old gasket material. I thought I might check that next. Thanks for your help.
There are restrictors in each head. You pull the cam cover off and have to pry them off. The one on the right side was stopped up with metal from the head resurfacing process. I cleaned it out and the problem was solved.
That’s great! Thanks for letting everyone know how this ended…
It’s great that you found that problem, but I really wonder where else you have metal shavings stuck now. Who machined the heads? Didn’t they clean them afterwards?
I should have removed the cam shafts before the heads were resurfaced. I learned a pretty hard lesson. Next time I will clean them out myself. Thanks guys for the help.
I am working on a 2007 town car now. It has an intermittent scraping noise near the center top of the dash, about the middle. Also when I turn turn the vehicle off there is a sound sort of like water sloshing around. I am thinking it may be a blend door actuator. Is anyone familiar with these noises?
The scraping noise is most likely an actuator for the ac system
The sloshing noise is one of 2 things, in my opinion . . . .
Water in the case, due to a plugged condensation drain tube
Coolant, due to a leaking heater core