Ford 600 runs rough and clicks

Ammocan

New User
So as of this afternoon my 640 ran like silk then I was giving the kids a ride down the street 1/2 to 3/4 throttle and all the sudden it developed a sputter and a click. It will still fire up easy as ever and will throttle up but now it vibrates a little more than normal runs a little rough (like a miss) and has a clicking at the front left corner of the motor. It sounds kinda like an exhaust leak but to have a sudden exhaust leak that caused a miss in the motor seems strange and unlikely. My initial gut reaction was a sticking lifter and a valve not functioning but I quickly learned that they have solid lifters so that seems unlikely to impossible. If I pull the plug wires while running it?s clear all cylinders are still firing. Maybe the rockers suddenly fell horribly out of spec? Broken valve? Broken rocker? Broken push rod? Any knowledge or lived experience on the subject would be Helpful. Thanks
 
I dunno, but I'd be taking the valve cover off and do a close inspection of the valve gear. Broken valve spring or something would show up at cranking speed. Just pull the coil wire so you can crank without starting.
 


I would start by removing the valve cover. You can do so without removing the sheet metal or gas tank. You just loosen the tank mounts and wedge it up. Then the valve cover just rolls out to the right. Since it is still firing on all four it is not likely to be a valve problem however. It sounds like a broken crank shaft. They can break near the front and still run for a little while.
 
dang I hope its not a crank. I will say the sound is nowhere near as low as the crank. The sound seems to be much closer to the head. I intend to get into the head when I have some time but I just don't know what to expect. I did a top end rebuild on a 79 ford 460 and I must have done the valves 5 times before I got it right. it was a steep learning curve but I'm persistent. I guess what I'm asking is will this type of problem be evident when I break into this motor or is this motor more sensitive than that and only diagnosed with surgical tools? could this problem even be caused just by being out of spec or should I anticipate breakage of some kind?
 
I will do just that. I'm curious if there is a good tutorial out there on inspecting and adjusting the valve train on these motors. thanks for the reply.
 
The governor is in that area you describe. The I&T FO-20 service manual should guide you through the rocker arm adjustments. Have you taken a good look at the fan and water pump? My Dad had a Chevy pick-up that started shaking vibrating out of the blue. Turned out that one of the fan blades came off.
 
(quoted from post at 09:19:38 05/19/20) The governor is in that area you describe. The I&T FO-20 service manual should guide you through the rocker arm adjustments. Have you taken a good look at the fan and water pump? My Dad had a Chevy pick-up that started shaking vibrating out of the blue. Turned out that one of the fan blades came off.

I did consider that but the fan is not the culprit. I don't know much about the governor and really wouldn't know how to verify that but the noise and hesitation seem to follow the RPM of the motor. the accelerator seems to work just fine and the motor responds but the hesitation also responds in kind and becomes more pronounced.
 
So I was able to get out some off my finer instruments this afternoon to do a little more diagnostics. I put my Stanley Flathead stethoscope on the motor in several places and honestly she is smooth and quite everywhere. The valve train is noisy but but it s always clickety-clacken away and I don t really know what "normal" is for these motors. I did however notice it seems just a scosh noisier at the north end of the valves. So either way I think a valve check is in order.

I did discover something else interesting which has me taking a left turn on the diagnostics. I pulled the wire on the front cylinder again and went back to the carb side to have a listen and the pattern of the sound had changed and I thought I could smell just a touch of unburned fuel. So... now I m thinking hard about an exhaust leak causing that clicking sound and an exhaust leak wouldn t measure on the Flathead stethoscope. While I m checking on the valves I will also take off the manifold and get a look at the gasket.

My followup question is would an exhaust leak cause the motor to run rough even in the slightest?
 
I don't think an exhaust leak would cause the engine to run rough. Before taking anything apart, I would run a compression test. I wonder it you could have a carbon build up issue. I think I just read recently about spraying something into the carburetor intake while the engine is running to clean out carbon. I think it was on the site, but don't remember which forum.
 
I bought a 1955 850 back in December that had a tap that I assumed was a lifter. After adjusting the valves, it still had a tap. I did some reading on several forums, this one included, and someone that had the same symptoms with their tractor said a sleeve was moving. I reluctantly pulled the head and found #4 sleeve moving up with the piston. I pulled the piston and rod, cleaned the sleeve and bore and "glued" the sleeve in with sleeve retainer. Permatex and Locktite both make this. It s about like super glue that is good up to 400+ degrees. It did the job on my tractor, I just hope it lasts. This may not be your problem, but it s something to consider. Good Luck!
(quoted from post at 23:04:30 05/18/20) So as of this afternoon my 640 ran like silk then I was giving the kids a ride down the street 1/2 to 3/4 throttle and all the sudden it developed a sputter and a click. It will still fire up easy as ever and will throttle up but now it vibrates a little more than normal runs a little rough (like a miss) and has a clicking at the front left corner of the motor. It sounds kinda like an exhaust leak but to have a sudden exhaust leak that caused a miss in the motor seems strange and unlikely. My initial gut reaction was a sticking lifter and a valve not functioning but I quickly learned that they have solid lifters so that seems unlikely to impossible. If I pull the plug wires while running it?s clear all cylinders are still firing. Maybe the rockers suddenly fell horribly out of spec? Broken valve? Broken rocker? Broken push rod? Any knowledge or lived experience on the subject would be Helpful. Thanks
 


I had the same situation as wingbone on a 960 twenty years ago. I use the Permatex product and the problem was solved.
 
Thanks for that bit of information Wingbone and showcrop. I would have never even considered and issue with the sleeve. I guess I have quite a bit of work to do. my Monday holiday will afford me the time to dig in and figure this out. hopefully I can get it back to work after Monday. got to much work to do to have a 1955 Ford boat anchor sitting in my garage
 
Ok update. The 2 problems of the miss and the clicking sound are not connected. I took off the manifold and a few of the bolts were only finger tight at the front where the sound was coming from. I sandblasted the manifold and painted (because why not) I then put it back on with new gaskets. The clicking sound is gone! Who would have thought? Tighten your manifold bolts.

The miss is still there. But I had a repeat of the first time it happened. I started it up and drove it around. It seemed fine then after a short drive the miss showed up again almost suddenly. What would cause a miss after the engine heats up but fine while it cold?
 
(quoted from post at 16:50:43 05/22/20) Ok update. The 2 problems of the miss and the clicking sound are not connected. I took off the manifold and a few of the bolts were only finger tight at the front where the sound was coming from. I sandblasted the manifold and painted (because why not) I then put it back on with new gaskets. The clicking sound is gone! Who would have thought? Tighten your manifold bolts.

The miss is still there. But I had a repeat of the first time it happened. I started it up and drove it around. It seemed fine then after a short drive the miss showed up again almost suddenly. What would cause a miss after the engine heats up but fine while it cold?

What do you have for compression?
 
(quoted from post at 17:31:53 05/22/20)
(quoted from post at 16:50:43 05/22/20) Ok update. The 2 problems of the miss and the clicking sound are not connected. I took off the manifold and a few of the bolts were only finger tight at the front where the sound was coming from. I sandblasted the manifold and painted (because why not) I then put it back on with new gaskets. The clicking sound is gone! Who would have thought? Tighten your manifold bolts.

The miss is still there. But I had a repeat of the first time it happened. I started it up and drove it around. It seemed fine then after a short drive the miss showed up again almost suddenly. What would cause a miss after the engine heats up but fine while it cold?

What do you have for compression?

105 to 110 on all cylinders
 
It just dawned on me I Forgot to open up up the carb before the test. Intake was a little restricted for the test. I would probably see a little higher numbers if I ran it again but none the less they were all really close to each other.
 
Solved!

So I already gave an update on the exhaust leak which was the clicking sound. Today I got into the valves. I found several valves that were way out of spec. Some of them measured a tight .008 clearance. I got all the valve set at .017 while cold.

Before I fired her up I decided I should have a look at The air cleaner. When I took it apart I found a wasp nest inside that was not inhabited but had started collecting oil and dirt and parts of the nest and other debris had mixed with oil and collected in the steel mesh filter. It was awful. I set to cleaning it out and it took some effort. I had to pull out the mesh screen that sits above the oil canister and literally set fire to it to clean all the debris that had got caught up in it and mixed with oil. The fire worked real well and I just blew out the remaining ash. I m sure that s the prescribed method right from Ford.

Got the air cleaner back together and fired up the tractor. And wouldn t you know it, the thing runs like a gazelle. I am actually astounded at how well it runs now and sort of amazed that it ran at all before.

Based on the fact that it developed a miss fire after getting hot, I m sure that the valves were my main problem but I m sure the restricted air cleaner was playing a role as well. Thanks for all the replies.
 


Congratulations! you have overcome two unusual problems, as well as a more common one, and you had all of them at the same time! Thanks fore posting back!
 

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