302 Question
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Senior User
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 388
Likes: 5
From: Florida
302 Question
My old engine is definately in need of some work.. It runs pretty sluggish.
I noticed the last time I fired her up that there is a knocking noise under the front passenger side valve cover. I suppose it could be a sticking lifter or something. My question is this: Can I take the valve cover off and take a look without spilling oil all over the place? What do I need to do to prepare to take off the valve cover? Anything?
As you can tell, I've never really worked on an engine before..
I noticed the last time I fired her up that there is a knocking noise under the front passenger side valve cover. I suppose it could be a sticking lifter or something. My question is this: Can I take the valve cover off and take a look without spilling oil all over the place? What do I need to do to prepare to take off the valve cover? Anything?
As you can tell, I've never really worked on an engine before..
Posting Guru
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 1,118
Likes: 0
From: Williamson, NY
Yes you can remove the valve cover w/o oil spilling all over. You may have some drips, but it should not be too bad. I do not know the year of your 302 application to be able to tell what you need to take off to get at the valve cover, but it should be pretty straight forward telling what needs to be removed. Usually you may need to remove some sparkplug wires or vacuum hoses. Remember to label anything you remove so you know where to reconnect them later. Once you remove the valve cover and you have reconnected anything you disconnected you can start the engine and see if you can determine the cause of the knocking noise. If oil starts getting all over the place, you can fabricate a aluminum foil oil deflector on the outer edge of cylinder head to catch the oil and allow it to drain back into the engine.
Jim
Jim
Senior User
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 292
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From: Kansas City
I thought I had a sticky lifter on the pass side, eventually I found it was a leaking egr flex tube. It had a pinhole leak, and from the cab sounded just like a lifter. I used a 2 ft piece of hose held to my ear to narrow down the source of the noise.
