73Coupe
Senior Member
I'm going to reserve some space here for the rebuild thread because the time is approaching.
I was driving back from Christmas last week, cruising down the freeway at about 60, and all of a sudden the engine just cut out. After pulling over, cranking the engine revealed a different sound. Something internal.
Finally having some time to tinker with it yesterday, I have the following data: Compression in all cylinders, although about lower than I had when last checked 50k miles ago, and now more variation too. Now they're about 125 - 145 psi where last time they were all around 150.
Distributor rotor turns and TDC seems to line up with the wires. There is some gas being blown out of the carb, though. All rockers are moving. Fuel and spark are present.
Anyways, I am 95% sure that it's the timing chain or gear. These have a plastic tipped cam gear which is the engine's Achilles heel. I am going to replace that for now with a double roller timing set and hopefully do the full rebuild next summer, including some performance enhancements to make it more like an earlier 440 (higher compression, etc). The 1973 version is a dog.
Just another sign that the inevitable is on the horizon. She gave me 60k miles in 4 years, on top of the 80k original miles that she had when I got her. So not too bad.
I was driving back from Christmas last week, cruising down the freeway at about 60, and all of a sudden the engine just cut out. After pulling over, cranking the engine revealed a different sound. Something internal.
Finally having some time to tinker with it yesterday, I have the following data: Compression in all cylinders, although about lower than I had when last checked 50k miles ago, and now more variation too. Now they're about 125 - 145 psi where last time they were all around 150.
Distributor rotor turns and TDC seems to line up with the wires. There is some gas being blown out of the carb, though. All rockers are moving. Fuel and spark are present.
Anyways, I am 95% sure that it's the timing chain or gear. These have a plastic tipped cam gear which is the engine's Achilles heel. I am going to replace that for now with a double roller timing set and hopefully do the full rebuild next summer, including some performance enhancements to make it more like an earlier 440 (higher compression, etc). The 1973 version is a dog.
Just another sign that the inevitable is on the horizon. She gave me 60k miles in 4 years, on top of the 80k original miles that she had when I got her. So not too bad.