Nailhead Noise

[kilkm]

The 401 Nailhead in my 62 Electra starts and runs flawlessly. However when I first start the engine a couple of the tappets are a little noisy for the first few seconds. When I bought this car it had pure synthetic oil in it, but the stuff was so thin it would go through a quart every 200 miles or so. I replaced the oil with conventional 10W30 and it cut the oil consumption dramatically but now I have the tappet noise. It quiets right down after a few seconds but it bothers me. Should I consider an additive such as slick 50 or bad idea? Not really sure how many miles on this engine. Speedo says 91,000 but when I bought the car I was told it had only 2000 miles on it since restoration. Don't know if that included full or partial engine rebuild. It also seems to have an awful lot of condensation from the exhaust when its first started. I know all cars have a little when their first started, But I have puddles of water out the duel exhaust when I let it warm up in the drive. Is this unusual or common with these engines, just wondering.

[Guest imported_NikeAjax]

Hey Hoss, you have a bad lifter in there; it's getting an air bubble in it causing the tapping sound. Since it uses so much oil when it's not a heavier grade, I would think they only did the lower half of your motor on the rebuild. I would use heavier grade oil, like 20/50 until you know what's going on with it, or something like STP as you suggested.

Duel exhausts will always have lots of water coming off of them at first, so don't trouble yourself.

Just a thought,

Jaybird

[Guest brh]

If lifters are making noise only on start, there is a possibility the oil filter is defective. There is supposed to be a check valve that maintains oil so when you start your engine, oil pressure comes up quickly. I don't believe in additives unless you know exactly what the problem is. A couple hung lifters could mean a couple of highway trips, drain oil and put in fresh. Duals always leave a lot of water I would not worry about that. Remember these cars were made to be driven.

[55PackardGuy]

The reason for the excess moisture out of the duals vs singles is that the pipes take longer to warm up than a single exhaust, causing more condensation. This is also a reason that dual exhausts tend to rust out from the inside faster than singles. There is supposed to be a valve in one manifold that is closed during warmup, making it effectively a single exhaust until it's warm. If this is not working or absent you'll experience more condensation out the tailpipes. Easy enough to check, unless you have a "crossover" style muffler which will cause equal exhaust out of both the tailpipes, regardless of whether the manifold valve is working. Then you'll have to check the valve itself to make sure it's close when cold, and open when warm. I believe it's on the passenger side manifold.

Also, it's a good idea to warm up the car this way only if you plan to drive it afterwards to full operating temperature. Turning the car off and letting it sit before the exhaust system is completly warmed up and all the moisture is dried will rot out the insides of the pipes and mufflers really fast, because they'll sit there with trapped moisture still inside. If you store your car for winter, starting it once in a while "just to keep it limbered up" is a bad idea for this reason--and other reasons too.