Well, I had a coolant leak last week and come to find out a heater hose had ruptured. I got that fixed, topped off the coolant and now I notice that the gauge will rise up and down, yet I do not see any signs of the car overheating...if l let idle in the driveway with hood open the gauge stays just slightly above the half-way mark. Does anybody have any ideas? Also, are the valves adjustable on the SOHC motor? I can hear one hitting the top of valve cover on occasion.
The good news is that I got hooked up with a phat set of Fittipaldi 5 stars for the Pro!! It looks sweet! Pix to follow.

 

You might check your coolant temperature sender. It might have gone bad after the coolant loss. Also, have you needed to refill your coolant recently? There is usually a chance of warping the head whenever suffer a burst hose or similarly large leak. Water may be passing the temperature sender off and on causing the guage to rise up and down.

As for your valve, they certainly won't hit the valve cover. However, the noise you hear most likely indicates that you have a collapsed lifter. Usually a good oil flushing will clean out the lifters in our engines as well as all the oil passages. A clogged oil passage could cause lifters to not function properly.

Search the forum, as the topic of flushing your oil was discussing a month or two back. There is a link to a site with instructions on how to flush the oil. Use the keyword HLA if you don't come up with anything.

It's a tedious task, but well worth the trouble.

 

I Have never heard of a head warping from a heater hose leaking...I never let the car get to hot but, I suppose anything is possible. I guess I will watch it the next few days to see if it is using any coolant. I wonder how long I can drive it like that before it gives out? I Once drove an '84 Delta 88 with a similiar problem across country on a 3 day trip. Car never over heated but the gauge would shoot up and down like crazy. I drove it for months after that and finally sold it for three hundred bucks.

My bad on the valve, I did mean to say lifter. I will try the oil flush but, if that doesn't solve the problem, I may just go ahead and hold out until the end of the year and get a new DOHC for the car.

 

Well, if it was just a small leak, then, no, you shouldn't worry about the head warping. It should only be a concern when the coolant system empties out. You said you had a ruptured hose, so I had the picture in my head of gushing coolant.

If your engine is drinking water, then you should be able to see a drop in the coolant level in the radiator. Just make sure you let the engine cool off before you open it.

 

Coolant loss wasn't excessive but, I did have to put in about a quater of a jug a day later after I had topped it off. I never did see how big the split in the hose was when took it to the shop. I had them replace the hose and top off the coolant on Friday. They didn't mention anything else about it. The "Mullchanic" told me it seemed fine afterwards. I drove the car about 5 miles over the weekend to get the wheels I bought. I checked the coolant level yesterday and I had coolant at the top of the radiator. I will keep an eye out on it.

As a side note, I swear I hear a noise that sounds like something hitting the top of the valve cover...it sounds like a metallic "tink" noise...I have never heard a noisy/stuck lifter on a jap motor so I am in the dark about that.

 

My guess is that it would be a lifter if not more than one.

I had my Pro sit for about three days once. I went to go start it, and the lifters were louder than I had ever heard them before. It was like "ooo. Metal hitting metal! Not good! Bad! Bad!" They quieted down to normal levels after about ten minutes of the engine idling.

If not the lifters, you might have a stuck valve, where the cam lobe no longer contacts the valve and then the valve springs back.