[71fj40guy]

Originally Posted by cadillacdave1

Definitely an unusual noise. I was thinking it could be a broken damper or 2. Or like the previous post a bad or weak valve spring. Does it chatter in the driveway if u rev it up? If so remove the valve covers and try revving the motor up and see which valve springs are making the noise

Once warmed up it doesn't make any noise at idle, but If I do give it some gas then I do here the noise. More so under a load.

[UPandComing]

Originally Posted by 71fj40guy

Once warmed up it doesn't make any noise at idle, but If I do give it some gas then I do here the noise. More so under a load.

now that you say this i had a plymouth that did that turned out to be an exhaust leak either at the manifold or at the doughnut i sold it b4 i narrowed it down

[71fj40guy]

After closer inspection with the valve covers off, the chatter seems to be coming from the valves above the #4 cylinder and 1 above the #1 cylinder. So I ordered a set of Edelbrock 5894 springs which are equivelent to the stock ones. Now I just have to reserve a weekend to put them in. The rocker arms and push rods checked out fine.

[UPandComing]

Good luck I hope it works, I would recommend putting compressed air to the cylinder your going to work on to prevent the valve from dropping into the cylinder and put a small magnet on the tip of the valve before compressing the spring to prevent the keepers from fallng into the cylinder head

[71fj40guy]

Replaced all of the valve springs with a set of Edelbrock 5894 springs. When I lined up all 16 of the old springs it looks like 5 of them were noticeably shorter. After the new springs were installed and adjusted, I took it out for a test drive. The good news is the motor runs a lot better, power is good, and almost all of the mystery noise is gone. The bad new is I can still here it a bit while accelerating and when I hooked up the compressor to swap out the springs the number 4 cylinder was leaking bad and would only hold about 50 psi of air. The number 6 cylinder was also leaking air and would only hold 90 psi of air. All others seem to hold 120 no problem. When running theirs no smoke comming out of the exhaust and it doesn't burn oil. Any ideas why those 2 cylinders would not hold air?

[F-BIRD'88]

Do a compression test.. Broken ring land bent valve. head gasket between 6 and 4

[71fj40guy]

I was leaning toward the head gasket too. Looks like I will have another weekend worth of work ahead of me. I'm going to have to get a compression tester and check it out.

[UPandComing]

Originally Posted by 71fj40guy

Replaced all of the valve springs with a set of Edelbrock 5894 springs. When I lined up all 16 of the old springs it looks like 5 of them were noticeably shorter. After the new springs were installed and adjusted, I took it out for a test drive. The good news is the motor runs a lot better, power is good, and almost all of the mystery noise is gone. The bad new is I can still here it a bit while accelerating and when I hooked up the compressor to swap out the springs the number 4 cylinder was leaking bad and would only hold about 50 psi of air. The number 6 cylinder was also leaking air and would only hold 90 psi of air. All others seem to hold 120 no problem. When running theirs no smoke comming out of the exhaust and it doesn't burn oil. Any ideas why those 2 cylinders would not hold air?

Awesome progress, i can tell you with a certain degree of certainty that the 2 cylinders you are having trouble with either A) have a bent valve or B) are in need of a simple valve job, i dont recall what kind of heads are on the car are they stock? if so they probably need a freshen up, if they are out of the box heads and bolted directly on it is a COMMON problem that when new cylinder heads are built the tolerances are WAY wide, i would recommend taking the heads in to a machine shop have them cleaned inside and out get a 3 angle valve job done to guarantee a tight seal AND!!! when reassembling the engine remember to index the spark plugs, this last part is very important and will effect the overall way you're engine runs, the machinist should check valves for straightness, grind the tips if needed, test the spring pressures to ensure they are within spec, and new valve stem seals, i think if you go this route you will be VERY happy and satisfied with the result. also by removing the heads you will be able to inspect the cylinder walls this will be good because if you have a broken ring (which i dont think you do) you will see heavy oily buildup on the piston face or even excessive wear on the cylinder wall its self, just remember what you do on one side you should do on the other otherwise you may end up chasing gremlins, and on a side note in regards to you're short springs, some engine have shorter springs on the intake side if im correct and there usually is shims underneath to set the proper height. i hope all my jawing helps out

[71fj40guy]

Originally Posted by UPandComing

Awesome progress, i can tell you with a certain degree of certainty that the 2 cylinders you are having trouble with either A) have a bent valve or B) are in need of a simple valve job, i dont recall what kind of heads are on the car are they stock? if so they probably need a freshen up, if they are out of the box heads and bolted directly on it is a COMMON problem that when new cylinder heads are built the tolerances are WAY wide, i would recommend taking the heads in to a machine shop have them cleaned inside and out get a 3 angle valve job done to guarantee a tight seal AND!!! when reassembling the engine remember to index the spark plugs, this last part is very important and will effect the overall way you're engine runs, the machinist should check valves for straightness, grind the tips if needed, test the spring pressures to ensure they are within spec, and new valve stem seals, i think if you go this route you will be VERY happy and satisfied with the result. also by removing the heads you will be able to inspect the cylinder walls this will be good because if you have a broken ring (which i dont think you do) you will see heavy oily buildup on the piston face or even excessive wear on the cylinder wall its self, just remember what you do on one side you should do on the other otherwise you may end up chasing gremlins, and on a side note in regards to you're short springs, some engine have shorter springs on the intake side if im correct and there usually is shims underneath to set the proper height. i hope all my jawing helps out

Thanks for the info, I really just want my Land Cruiser running right and this issue has been kicking my butt.
The heads I have are
P/N 93438649 Cylinder Head Assembly with Valves for 290HP
They came installed on the 290HP 350 crate motor.
I guess I need to call around and find a good place in San Diego County to take in my heads.

[UPandComing]

finding a place in sandiego wont be hard and if you have to head up to LA

[71fj40guy]

I finally had a chance to pull the heads off yesterday and then dropped them off at the machine shop today for a full cleaning and valve job.

I checked all the piston walls for excess wear and everything looked perfect. all the walls were nice and smooth.

all of the piston faces had plenty of carbon build up except for number 6. It was pretty clean so they may have been some water leakage from that part of the head gasket.

I still need to check all the lifters for possible damage but I'm pretty sure the are fine.

I'll be putting everything back together next weekend so we'll see if that solves the valve noise problem.

[F-BIRD'88]

Now that you got it apart, degree the cam and move it for more torque....or replace.

[Northern Chevy]

I came across both of your engine threads this evening 70fj ( love those old fj Toyota's ) and saw your comment " I hope this solves my valve train noise problem " and F-BIRD'88 suggesting a cam change. Now while I am a total novice in a sense, I would seriously take that idea up of dropping in a new cam, lifters, timing set as its the perfect time since its mostly apart now with all fluids drained. At least down there in the States a cam kit is very reasonably priced and I would be surprised if you didn't find some excessive wear on a lobe or lifter and harder to tell, a lifter that is leaking down faster then it should. The bonus of the right cam for that 4x4 which flows like a brick through the air, you just might gain on mileage too, not to mention a stump pulling low end that just leaps from the lights or off road.

The reason for my little rant, I have an L05 series factory engine in my pickup thats been acting up lately and had it to a couple of mechanics and they thought for sure its worn valve guides thats causing it to miss sporadically at idle ... its more like constant now and am hearing some slight valve train noise. So on the weekend I do a compression test on all cylinders and the one they claimed had only 110 psi and was missing on their scope is actually the highest reading at 170 but I found its exhaust lifter to be bottoming out way too easy. I wish that's all that is wrong as I put a dial indicator on all valves on that head and I was blown away, my cam is melting away on all the lobes and although I will never know, I blame some of this on the newer oils. The point is, they missed what the real reason was and yet they knew these chevy engines have had cam shaft issues for years. I realize money is tight but ... it wouldn't hurt to think about that and do some pricing once you get some good cam grind profile ideas to look at. Then you will have covered all the basis and probably be ahead in the long run.

[67canso]

you got a noisy gear drive in there or is it a m-22 rockcrusher

[Northern Chevy]

I forgot to add, if you did decide to change out the cam shaft, make sure your distributor gear and shaft play are good so there would be no chance of eating the gears off of both as its easily overlooked. At least a normal grade cast dist gear is very cheep to purchase if needed. I expect $300.00 would cover the cam kit, all gaskets for the timing cover and oil pan and dist gear if needed.