Had my car sitting for 6 years, recently just started putting it back together, I finally got my new exhaust installed the other day so I'm not running straight y pipe anymore and I can actually hear my engine and I have a very loud tapping sound. At first it appeared to be related to my timing but after fiddling with it and doing for troubleshooting I closed that thread after it started tapping ALL the time.

I have heard rod knock before, it doesn't sound like that to me (or it's very mild).

My actual question is this: When I first started putting my car back together (I had it down to the heads & block only, everything else was off the engine), I drained the oil that was in it, it was very sludgy and somehow about 4-6 quarts of water joined my oil while it was sitting, but the car was never run with it like that. Could having the water just SITTING in there kill my bearings or internal parts?

 

Yes, the water would not have been good. But the tapping may be a sticking lifter. Did you flush the engine, run your brand of sludge remover through it like, marvel mystery oil, engine restorer, seafoam, duralube, etc? I hear that you should stay away from Zmax. When you said you had it down to the heads and block only I take it that you didn't have the heads off at any time? Might just have a bunch of sludge built up.

 

No I never had the heads off, I was planning to just do the whole motor but that just wasn't working out as demonstrated how long it took me to start working on it at all. Now that I have the inital work on this particular car phobia licked I am finding out that my cheap "Just get the damn thing running so it's not sitting there" is costing alot more than I thought.

I ran some sort of oil cleaner that I bought the parts store (just some generic one) through the oil and then changed the oil for a 2nd time after getting everything running decent, I still need to do some more diagnostics. I haven't used SeaFoam before but I've been hearing about it for a long time, I will probably try that. Do I only run it through a vacuum line or do I put some in the fuel and/or engine oil as well?

I was thinking I would be doing the top end this summer anyways to freshen it and put a cam in it but I wanted to get it so I would know things were working right when I take them apart.

I did run a bottle of Lucas fuel treatment through the engine as well, that works REALLY good for removing carbon buildup but I am thinking maybe I need something stronger in the engine oil as well.

Tomorrow night I will attempt to narrow the noise to valvetrain or bottom end, hopefully I will get lucky and it will just be a lifter or two and I can clean or replace those when the heads are off. I gotta pull the intake again anyways since I didn't quite get the rear seal on the lifter valley right and it has a small oil leak.