Re: Towing, AGAIN

["Tom Harais" <tjhemh@domain.elided>]

Dan:

Tell me more! Did cleaning out your drainback channels really help the oil
return to the pan and prevent high speed lifter noise in one of your IH
engines?

I pulled my valve covers (PL - pre-list) to see about adjusting my lifters
a little as well as to check on oil drainback, but mostly to replace the
valve cover gaskets that were leaking. I quickly found out:

	1) The hydraulic lifters weren't adjustable like the old GMs I was used
to.
	2) The oil drainback holes in the heads seemed awfully small.
	3) I had a 304 and not the 345 the guy that had sold the Terra to me told
me 	    I had.

After a little inspection and VC gasket replacement, I surmised that my IH
engine was always going to leak oil at the VC gaskets because I could tell
that the oil "pooled up" there and in doing so, with the cant of the heads,
sat around up there only draining back in the bottom rear hole probably.

Of course, I was running my Scout with only 5 qts of oil back then because
I swore that's what the manual said too. I just figured that when I got
around to rebuilding the motor (which I thought was any day since that
puppy had more than 150,000 on it and I just knew it had to be rebuilt) I'd
ream those drainback holes real nice and paint them up with GE electric
motor paint like we used to do the lifter galleries in our hotrod engines
to promote oil drainback.

Since that time, I've learned to run 6 quarts of oil and I threw a bottle
of STP Lifter Quiet in. To my amazement, the oil pressure has returned to
where it was when I purchased the Scout with "only" 129,000 miles. The only
time I hear lifter noises now is at cold start up and I don't worry about
it much, since it goes away as soon as the oil pressure starts up.

Now all I need to do is use that "RIght Stuff" John Hofstetter bought me
and fix those VC gasket leaks once and for all!

Tom H.