Bam!! headgasket? Follower?

[spe926]

Well my car was finally running perfectly and today after shifting from first to second (normal driving) I gave it gas in second and there was a loud thud, pop, bam noise. I am leaning towards the headgasket but there is no smoke or water in the oil. The only other thing that i can think of is that after the noise there seems to be more valvetrain noise than normal so mayber I snapperd a follower? The car still runs but struggles to idle and hardly has any power to even move it. I was able to pull the car over and got it towed home. I bought a compression tester and will be checking that tomorrow, any other ideas on what it could be or do i pretty much have it narrowed down?

[Raven855]

This recently happened to me. Thought it was a head gasket when I found low cylinder pressure on 1 cylinder. Plug was missfiring also. Pulled the valve cover and found the intake and exhaust rocker busted on 1 cylinder. Replaced them and its running good.

[spe926]

thats what i was thinking, Everytime I have heard of a loud head gasket blowing it is catastrophis with large amounts of smoke and fluids etc.

[boostedbruiser]

Hmm everytime i ever popped a Hg it was nothing at all but a nice coolant leak afterwards......... I never heard nothing......

I'm also betting it was a follower

One way to find out.... get to wrenching.

[spe926]

well, i pulled the valve cover and all the followers were intact so compression test is coming shortly, although there really isn't anything else it could be

[spe926]

Stumped

Well upon a compression test I am completely stumped

the results were
#1 - 160
#2 - 170
#3 - 175
#4 - 165

So based on these numbers it isn't a head gasket and all followers are intact, any ideas out there in svo land?

[SVOinDC]

Well upon a compression test I am completely stumped

the results were
#1 - 160
#2 - 170
#3 - 175
#4 - 165

So based on these numbers it isn't a head gasket and all followers are intact, any ideas out there in svo land?

All HLA's still working? Did you jump a couple of teeth on the cam gear?

[spe926]

How would I check the hla? timing belt did not jump a tooth, I checked that also.

[Pat_in_L.A.]

I gave it gas in second and there was a loud thud, pop, bam noise.

Pull the distributor and see if the shear pin is broken.

Pop bam noise may have been it backfiring.

[IXLR8SVO]

Pop the dist cap and try to rotate the rotor.

Had a very similar issue once when I thought I blew a head gasket and since I had a fresh big valve head just started tearing things down without doing a comp test first. I was puzzled when the head gasket looked great and even more so when the car ran as bad as before with the new head & gasket.

I’ve spit several aux/dist gears in my day so I thought I should check it out. Turned out, first time for me anyway, the distributor plate that the rotor aligns to and the shutter wheel attaches onto the shaft broke free and let the rotor jump ahead several degrees. The plate is only swaged onto the distributor shaft.

Not saying its your problem but it’s a fast and easy check

[IXLR8SVO]

Remember when you found me on the fwy Pat?

Yeah..... Its most likely what Pat said, either the shear pin or my favorite: the infamous auxiliary shaft/distributor gear tooth spitting

[Pat_in_L.A.]

Remember when you found me on the fwy Pat?

I sure do.

A month or two later you registered here. A while after that you became a PAID MEMBER. You ended up making friends from far away when you needed hard to find parts. Life is good.

[IXLR8SVO]

Yes, Life is good!

I never could have gotten as far as I have or come up the unobtainable parts without the friends in this club.

[spe926]

So you guys are telling me dizzy, which I will check tomorrow and that other turbo ford site is telling me collapsed hla, so I am going to check both of these before I am out of options.

[under pressure]

I was driving my 86 years ago at night 40 miles from home. Bang the car was back-friing like a AK-47. It looked like fire works under the car. It was so bad it blew one of the mufflers wide open. Christine got me home. It turned out that one of the vanes in the distributor broke of causing all kinds of shorting going on inside the cap. Keep spare parts!