Aright, I've never been into a motor and I've learned more in the past month about the heart of the 7.3L than I ever have before. If you've been following my high-hp, high-mileage thread, you'll see where the title of this thread is coming from. I want to try to keep as much of the motor true to it's mileage as possible, mainly because I wanna see how far this thing will go. Plus, I don't have money to spend on freshening the motor up, especially if it really don't need it. From what I can tell, Cory was telling me that the seasoned seal between the heads, block, and head gaskets are desirable for high-hp applications and it would be ideal if I could keep from breaking that seal. However, a couple months ago, I broke a pushrod. I've always had a tapping sound from that side of the block, but the rod finally broke on me. I didn't screw up the lifters or anything because the end of the rod was still pressed into the end of the lifter. I replaced the rod and it was quiet. Well, the tapping "seems" to be coming back... it might just be other rods that're showing 304K, but I'm kinda curious. Is there any way to tell the condition of the valve train without pulling the heads? Like, can I tell if the valves aren't bent and are seating properly without having to break the seal? What kinds of things can I do, or do I have to pull the heads to know for sure? I just don't want to put alot of effort into hopping this motor up if it needs a little internal work... I'll have the motor out to reseal the oil pan and clean it up anyways. The frame needs a real good cleaning... you get the idea. I hope this makes sense... let me know if I'm being confusing. Thanks, guys!

 

Doing a compression test, or cylinder leakage test, would give you a good indication of the integrity of the valve seating and ring seal. I plan to do that myself in the near future.

 

Hmmm... we might could get Cory to make us some of those gutted glow plug fittings for compression testing. I'm gonna definitely do that when I get around to building up the motor.

Now here's a question: when the EBPV closes, should I be hearing a slight popping out the intake like I was hearing when I lost my exhaust valve push rod? Is this normal?

 

If you have a hydraulic shop close or someone that can get fittings, I used a M10 X1 to 1/8" NPT adapter with about a 18" grease gun whip with a 1/8" Female to Female(Barrel) to connect to the diesel compression tester I bought from harbor freight for $30, totalled about $50 if you wanted to build one yourself, or if you like I will ship you my setup when you need it?

 

[quote=mueckster;10044873]Doing a compression test, or cylinder leakage test, would give you a good indication of the integrity of the valve seating and ring seal. I plan to do that myself in the near future.[/quot

I'd like to see some pictures on this to see just how it is done. Pressures to. It would also help on building something to do this with. Thanks guys,

Chet

 

I did the compression test as described in my above post, for cylinder leakage, I pulled the pushrods, then added valve stem adapter to the grease gun whip to pressurize the cylinder and listen to where it was leaking from.

 

Where you having compression problems, Alan?