Hello All,

Backstory:

This is probably my first post here in 4 years. I have a 1969 Cutlass S with a 455 out of a 73 Delta 88. Life got in the way and I haven't been able to get the old girl on the road for 3 summers.
Day 2 of having the car back on the road I took it for a drive and noticed a while in that the Oil PSI was unusually low, about 15-17 PSI. Automatic th400. On the way home I decide to get into it a bit, small peel out from stopped and I get her up to about 100. On the wind down I hear/feel a tick. I get home and pop the hood. all looks...normal. When I rev the engine via the throttle bracket I get to a low RPM and hear tick, tick, tick, tick under the driver side valve cover.

I take the valve cover off and all of my roller rockers look fine. None wiggle up and down. I spin all of the pushrods by hand and none of them feel like they've bent. I was expecting to find a bent push rod to be honest. Im going to describe what I find to the best of my ability. With my thumb on the top of the rocker and my pointer finger under the rocker I can push with my thumb, lift with my pointer and push the push rod into the head, manifold. It has some bounce back but not a ton. Do I have a collapsed lifter? Currently working with C heads, edelbrock cam and lifters(hydraulic).

Drove the car this morning to where I work on my car(1.7 miles away) and the oil pressure was normal. Let me know if you need more info!

Y'all know more about Olds/Cars than anyone else. Help me!

Best,
Alex

 

When you have a collapsed lifter the rocker will be very loose when the lifter is on the base circle. The rocker will just wobble around. So turn the engine over while checking the rockers to make sure they all still have the preload. I had a lifter collapse on me a couple of years ago, similar conditions. Depending on your rocker setup one of them just might have gotten loose and the preload needs to be reset. Now, if one rocker needs to be several turns tighter to get preload then all the others then you know that lifter is knackered.

The absolute way to check is pull off the intake. It'll be pretty apparent then.

It's fairly normal to be able to compress the lifter a bit while on the base circle. There's a spring inside that pushes the internal piston up - you're compressing that. Normally lifters get "pumped up" - filled with oil to the preload level, and the oil doesn't bleed out. Whether or not the oil bleeds out - and you're able to compress the piston again - just depends on which lifter you have, your oil, and the phase of the moon.

 

If the oil pressure was that low, why would you take it to 100 mph?

 

Is the valve train the same as what was originally on the engine ? Same cam, lifters, pushrods, rockers etc ?

 

We had a 98 Chevy Van ( I know-complete different engine) anyway it started to tick- loudly- out of the blue. Drove it home and prepared for engine surgery. Next day started it and noise was gone and never returned after another 10 years and lots of miles.... Also back in the day had a 68 Impala with a 327 (I know...) I floored that thing and got up to 100 or so and it ticked loudly. That one had to be repaired- stuck lifter... Good luck...