Hello to all, I've tried the search and I can't find info on 2.9 Bronco ll. Here is what's happining , 1988 Bll 5 spd auto lock hubs ac . No matter the outside temp still the same situation. Lifter noise, comes and goes. After I drive it for a while and reach norm operating temp, it begins to tick loudly. Now, after I stop and let it idle for 2-3 min the tick-click will go away gradually then it is quite and it runs great. Drive it again for awhile , same scenerio . I bought it used with 92k mi , not sure if it is 192k but it doesen't look like it has that many miles on it, pedals not worn , interior in great shape ,engine comp very clean. oil-10w-40, change @3k fram filter . it seems to me that after I reach a certain RPM this causes it to tick. Any ideas ? thanks . Ex..

 

gotta love those hydralic lifters. same thing happened to me, found out that one of my lifters were going bad

 

Thanks or the reply, dmc, I was in such a hurry to post this I forgot to add that about 6k ago i had a new set of lifters in stalled by the ford dealership. as soon as they were finished with it the service manager called me and said that it was still clicking. then when i got there to pick it up it quitt. he didn't have a clue why either. I heard through the grape vine and you know that is about as reliable as 'they' said that it was probably due to all the sludge build up in the oil galleries and when it got hot enough the expansion would slow down the oil flow. well this sounded good to me but i am just a replace the part kinda guy, not a real mechanic or tech. if ihave this engine rebuilt, can you open up the oil passage ways. is there some type of mechanix in a can that i can use to clean out the sludge without hurting my engine. thanks ex..

 

The top end oiling is poor on the 2.9s, you can improve it but it requires modification of the rockers and shafts.

 

how do you do the mods and how much will it cost me ?. thanks ex..

 

This was by Pat Kunz at another forum a while back and should cover the mod.

Kunz's 2.9L tip of the week (this one also works with 4.0L's and 2.8's)

Posted by Pat Kunz on April 20, 1998 at 14:26:13:

This tip comes directly from Sven Pruett's book How to Build and Modify Ford 60 degree V6's. If you really want to do this tip I highly recommend that you get this book, I beleive that Vanir still carries it. This weeks tip is on free floating rocker assemblies. This sounds pretty exotic but its really a pretty simple mod that will cost you probably under 200 bucks, got mine done for 150 I believe. The parts required to do this modification are new rocker shafts, Aluminum to be made into spacers, possibly new pedestals if the old ones are pretty worn, and some new roll pins, and last but not least a good machine shop. The modifications include changing the rocker arm to shaft clearances by quite a bit, chamfering the oil holes in the shaft, running aluminum spacers instead of the springs, and thats about it. now I will give you the specs.: Shaft to rocker arm clearance .0025-.003in. (stock is .0013in.) rocker arm bore diameter should be around .7836-.7842in. Aluminum spacer to rocker arm side clearance of .010-.015 for each roker arm that, that spacer is used with so .020-.030in. for the rocker arms between the pedestals. (stock is 0 clearence between spring and rocker arm, it actually rides up against it). With the increased rocker arm to shaft clearances and now a clearance between the spacers and the rocker arm, along with increased oiling to the upper valvetrain. These combine to create a very slick and essentially pretty friction free rocker movement, in fact after the valvetrain is reassemblrd you should be able to flick one of the rockerarms and have it spin arount the shaft numerous times. when compared to a stock rocker assembly its night and day in fact you will probably hurt your finger trying to flick one of those due to the springs actually exhurting pressure on the side of the rocker arm, and the very tight clearance of the rocker arm to shaft on a stock rocker assembly will tend to drag a little. The thing that surprised me the most about it was how much I improved my upper valvetrain oiling, on most 2.9's I can adjust the valvetrain with the valvecover off with the engine running and barely lose any oil spilled off the heads, On mine with the free floating rocker assembly, I tried it once and pumped about half a quart of Mobile one on the ground, I don't adjust mine that way anymore. This modification tends to help most in the upper RPM bands and its a noticeable increase but not as big of an increase as I would say headers would be. Also it seem to rev a little quicker than it did before the change mostly due to the lack of friction in the rocker assembly, and as a bonus they look pretty cool when you have your valvecover off if you run polished aluminum spacers. But if you are serious about doing this mod please get the book becouse it goes far more in depth than I did here.

Pat Kunz

 

thanks KEN00, i willcheck out the book. ex...