I just got a used bright yellow DHL E250. When I drove the first week it had a little miss. The next week it could barely start and stay at idle and engine light came on. The codes were a missfire for cylinders 2,3 and 4. So check and had good COP and plugs and fuel. Next I removed the valve and found three intake follwers had fallen off. The lifters were stiff and the valve springs look ok. Put them back on and started it up. On the first crank there was a sound like maybe one fell off again but start right up. ran like it did the first week. Drove it 5 miles and was back to running bad. Is this timing or a stuck valve. Any help is welcome.

 

Welcome.

Perhaps the followers are worn. They shouldn't just fall off that way. I really don't know why they would fall off so soon.

 

Check the cam bores for wear. If the camshaft is not sitting dead centered in it's bore, the valvetrain geometry will be off,and it'll toss off followers. I've seen a few oil starved modulars with cam bore damage do this.
JL

 

I took the other valve cover off and it seems to be cleaner (more silver) and the one with the follower falling off is more yellow. I took the timing cover off too and was trying to check the timing. I'm thinking an oil problem of some kind.

 

Timing is good. Removed the head and the cam. I noice that one intake valve is bent. If it was in time how could this get bent?

 

When the followers comes off, alot of the time they wedge between the camshaft lobe and the vale stem and bend the valve before falling down into the lower portion of the head.
JL

 

So I removed all the valves and found that 2 intakes were bent. One was bent from the top and one bent at the valve head. Does this sound like hot rodding was the caues? Should just rebuild the head or get a new one? Thanks.

 

That damage most likely occurred when the follower popped off. It hung the valve open on that one long enough to tap the top of the piston, which bent that valve head, and the stem was bent on the other when the cam lobe came around and wedged the follower against valve stem.
It's nearly impossible to "hotrod" or over rev a modular high enough to cause that kind of damage with the rev limiters,etc that are in place in the PCM's programming.
JL