Well this would be my first camaro ever. I just reciently got it off one guy who was selling it and it has a..... well lets just call it a rebuilder....Everything in the car except for the engine is fine. The problem i am having is this when we first fired it up it had a really lould knocking sound coming from the engine. Well when i was going down the list of certain things to look at i went to add oil cause it was a little bit low. well when i went to pour in the oil i noticed that the rocker arm was loose so i took off the cover. The first rocker was loose enough that it rocked side to side and had alot of play in it. I went to tighten them down but the bolts were already torqued to spec and still have alot of play in it. i check the push rods and it was slightly bent well i threw in one that was straight and still didnt fix the problem. I talked to a old timer and he said it was either push rods, lifters, or bent cam shaft. Well push rods are out of the picture now so im leaning toward bent cam shaft lobe. I was going to change the cam shaft out and do new lifters but what else should i do. I was thinking about getting this one kit that was new cam, lifters, timing parts, and gaskets. But i was wondering if there were other things i should be replacing when i take all that apart to do those. So i need to know what else should i do and after doing those things whats the likly hood of that fixing the really lould knocking it has and it being what was wrong in the first place. Thanks.

By the was its a 83 4-banger and still the origional engine
149,000 ish miles on it. Thanks again

 

Camshafts hardly bend, but the lobes can get wiped out. What I really suspect that you have one or more bad lifters, or possible a bad lobe, so the thing would be to change all the lifters and the camshaft. You will need a valve cover and front cover gasket set to reseal everything.

All of this assumes that you have identified the source of the noise correcly. There are ather things that make noise, such as bad bearings and broken pistons.

Being that the engine is pretty well used, you may just want to pull it out and rebuild it and take care of all the problems.

 

replace all of the lifters first. i smushed one of my lifters before, and the exhaust valve no longer opened. when the exhaust stroke on the motor came around, there would be a loud pop form that cylinder. check the lifters, along wiht the one form teh bad cylinder. if the lifters are worn down, then you might as well replace all of them, but if they are relatively flat and new, you can reuse them, but you have to replace the shushed one. i dont suspect that it is the cam, although its possible. sounds to me like your rocker was so loose that when the cam tried to lift it, it tilted sideways, jamming it. your pushrod bending is actually a good sign. it tells that the cam lobe had to be there for there to be enough lift to bend it. after you get the lifter in, then slide your pushrod in and make sure its centered correcetly. when you put your rocker on, slowly shake the rocker in its place, while tightening the bolt. keep tightening the bolt until the rocker can wiggle no more. then, give it half a turn.

 

TimmyTheWop89.....Well your half right i forgot to add that when i took off the valve cover and found that the rocker moved side to side i took that rocker arm off and looked at it and you can see a little like rub mark and a small piece of metal missing (small piece of metal was on the top of the valve cover) so im thinking that part was right and when it hit it was throwing the rocker off to the side and it was hitting the other rocker arm. I think that was the sound i heard cause it was like a metal to metal noise so it would be explained by that rocker arm. well hopefully im going to get to it this weekend and ill let you guy know what happens. Thanks again everyone

 

Well guys heres what happened. Finally got to rip apart everything. I took out the cover on the lifters and only 1 out of 8 of them were still good shape. One cylinder one where i had the lot of play the bottom of the lifter is all scored up and has a perfect circle in the center one of the lifters was concaved on the bottom. so my question is does the camshaft need replaced and what else should i do while i got this all apart. thanks