Well, finally got the engine back together and in the truck, but am getting a disturbing noise while cranking (before it fires). I still have air in the system, so it's taking 10-15 seconds to fire up and I hear this noise every time. I did head gaskets, oil cooler, ICP, IPR. It sounds like a noise from three cylinders or possibly something to do with the starter, not sure, but there are three loud bang noises then a pause and repeats. It sounds like:

bang bang bang, pause... bang bang bang, pause...

Seems to occur every revolution. After it fires up, it idles smooth with no strange noises. Could this be air in the HP oil system causing this noise? Starter misalignment? The starter is tight, I double checked that, and I'm pretty **** about torquing everything to spec.

I'll be at my parents again this weekend to work on it more, will try to take a video then. Thanks for any input!

 

Morning bump.

 

Does the truck shake when it "bangs" or is it just a sound?

 

Does the starter spin at normal speed or does it sound like it's under a heavy load?

 

The starter seems to spin fine and I don't remember feeling anything associated with the noise. I think I'll pull the starter off this weekend and inspect things. I really don't see how the starter can be misaligned though, there's really not any slop in the mounting holes. At first I thought it was the new larger downpipe banging on something, but it doesn't move much and the noise is too rhythmic and synched with rotation to be a downpipe rattle.

 

Free bump......

 

So when you tourqued the heads did you spin the crank a couple times to see if it went smooth or not

so the way I take it at this point is the Bang or whatever only happens when starter engauged

and runs smooth when engine runing

I remember you pulled the cab Did you ever separate the engine from trans

Man its good to see your making some progress be awhile to get to this point I know its tuff to work full time and then have the desire to do a side job basicaly with all your free time

Last moter trans I pulled took 3-4weeks to get back in and going I was so sick of it at the end and that was literaly every minute I was home I worked on it

 

without hearing it its hard to guess at. may be dry walls and some skirt slap.. then again may not be.

 

Thanks for the input everyone. I may have been a little paranoid and jumped the gun. As the air gets worked out of it, it started quicker today and that noise was much less noticeable. I think it may have just been air-related somehow. Tomorrow I'll get some coolant in it and run it for a while and see how it sounds after that.

 

Got any pics of your rebuild?

 

There are some pics in this other thread, but I have a lot more to add:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...ut-please.html

 

did the noise go away???

What position did you put the crank in when you installed Heads??

and Did you spin the crank after each head installed

Just curious and good Luck with it sounds like your getting really close

 

The noise hasn't gone away, and the air is worked out of the system now.

The crank was positioned so the dowel was at 6 o'clock during assembly and after assembly I turned it over 4-5 times by hand and didn't hear anything bad. It sounds great at idle, so I doubt it's anything internal to the engine.

I'm really leaning now towards it being the new downpipe hitting the firewall when starting, I'll need to investigate that more next time I'm at my parents' to work on it in a few weeks. I did a full flush with Restore and Restore Plus and installed Zerex ELC. Between all the flushes it was on high idle for about 4-5 hours yesterday and the engine sounds really good. The engine bay is now finished and I got the front seats put in while waiting on flushes. Getting closer to being finished, it just sucks that it's 6 hours away at my dad's shop and I can't work on it easily.

 

I went thru your old thread... You thought you bent a rod...what did it turn out to be? Can it be related to what you hear now?

 

I was hoping nobody would ask that...

I had thought a rod might be bend because it hydrolocked on oil from laying on it's side. It wasn't running when it hydrolocked, but when I tried starting it after it was upright it locked during the first revolution of the starter. After getting it home and sitting for a couple days, tried cranking and heard a deep scraping sound, which I assumed was a bent rod. Tore it apart and looked the rotating assembly over very closely and nothing was bent. Thought maybe I had heard a compression leak through a blown head gasket (from the hydro lock). Did new oem gaskets and head studs. Upon reassembly and not really finding anything wrong, I found that the fan shroud had cracked in two places and had marks from the fan hitting it. There was the sound that made me tear it apart...

Oh well, I have headstuds now and a new oil cooler... The thing is, if I had known the engine was good, I would have sold the salvage and saved myself a lot of time and headache. Live and learn.