Hi,
I posted a few weeks back about my Escort that I overheated and burnt a valve. As the pistons and cylinder walls seemed fine, I checked the block with a straight edge, and bought a rebuilt head to install. I installed a new head gasket/head bolts, torqued everything down, reconnected everything and started it up. At idle it had a light ticking noise, and was blowing some white smoke out the exhaust. I took it for a ride on the freeway and the ticking gradually got louder, and I couldn't get the car over 60mph. When I got off the freeway it was ticking very loudly and idling rough. The white smoke at the exhaust was gone.
I can't see anything arcing, and it has new plugs and wires. I checked the vacuum lines and all seems fine. The noise seems to be coming from around the intake manifold. The car wasn't overheating and all fluid levels (oil/coolant) are fine. Any clues?
Thanks.