Exhaust valve bucket fell out!!

Well, you're right. That was a pretty weird circumstance.

 

How did you compress the spring to get the keepers back on, and how did you hold the valve up while doing it?

Maybe there was not enough oil in the valve guides. I don't know how that would happen, and the springs should be strong enough to pull them up anyway. My first thought was that if it ran with no oil getting to the valves that the valve stem and guides maybe have been damaged, but I'd think the cam bearings would go before that from lack of oil.

 

I didn't have to hold the valve up, since it was so sticky it held itself up. I did have to pull on it, very
carefully, with plyers to get the valve closed. I didn't really have any other options. Once the valve was closed, I used the crappy rental valve spring compression tool from AutoZone to get the keepers back in.

The valves we're so sticky they were getting stuck at 100% open after the cam passed. There was evidence that the top of the motor was getting oil, I really just think it was a buildup of crud from old gas. The exhaust side wasn't sticky at all.

Before putting the cam back on for the last time, I pulled each lifter and put a bit of light weight oil on valve stem/spring. Once I did that, some of the valves would pop back closed after sitting for few seconds. I turned the motor over by hand probably 50 times and it seemed to be slowly getting better. Eventually I got tired and frustrated and just went for it, and everything worked out.

I really think this was likely the cause of the problem in the first place. I can easily see a stuck open valve causing the shim to pop out once once the cam lobe comes around and hits it.

Now I just wonder how the slightly damaged edges of the cam will affect reliability of the engine.

 

And you put the service bolt in the exhaust cam gears while you had the intake cam out?

 

Sure did.

 

I would imagine this is rust or fuel carbonization rather than oil or varnish from bad gas. gas shouldn't have been pooling there.

It's a doozy though. Lucky it didn't spit them all and break a boss somewhere.

 

The only history I have is that it sat for 2 years after the old man who owned it went into assisted living. He then sold it to a guy who drove it home, then it quit starting. He troubleshooted it by spraying starter fluid through the intake. It would sputter if he sprayed enough. I guess a friend told him it was the crank position sensor, so he bought that with the intention of swapping out, but never got around to it.

It sat for another year until I picked it up. I was 99% sure it was a bad fuel pump, which it was.

So in 3 years, it did a total of 100 miles.

I don't think rust would be an issue since this is NM, where frame bolts on a 20+ year old truck can be removed by finger once loosened.

 

I only thought rust if maybe someone had left up the hood in a rain storm with the intake off or something. I understand the inside of an engine does not rust unless open and your right in the desert, it may not even do it at all out there.

The fact that every valve was doing it is downright weird. carbon is ever present in these older engines so I imagine it HAS to be that. Maybe it did breakdown with fuel and wedged them open.

 

I'd run/ ran some

$16 BG 109 Compression Engine Performance Restore BG EPR

BG 109 or EPR,,, same product by same company, it'll clean the inside of that motor clean as a whistle,, clean the rings up also. Works well, it cut my oil consumption down by about a 1/3 by cleaning up the rings.

 

It's the only thing rec'd for the old 'sludge' engines Toyota made in the late '90s. May help. The fact you replaced pump, ran fine, ate a shim makes me think the gas did something to the carbon.

If it were me I'd sleep better thinking I rid the carbon somehow so it didn't happen again.

Sigh. Old cars. At least easy to work on.