I wanted to update this thread as I finally was able to get the 300 hour not the shop to sort out a few issues, and rebuild the front and rear suspension.
The last big and annoying issue was the engine “rubbing” noise and I have spent all week troubleshooting it with no luck until today.
I removed the belts and eliminated the water pump, alternator and power steering pump as the noise was still there. With the stethoscope the sound definitely seemed to be focused towards the top of the timing chain cover, behind the water pump.
I then removed the fuel pump pushrod and reinstalled the pump to eliminate that, and sure enough the sound was still there.
So I finally but the bullet this morning as I wanted to get a look at the camshaft end area so I drained and removed the rad, water pump etc, and then removed the timing chain cover.
Everything looked good there but I decided to rotate the timing chain sprockets so that the marks lined up and then removed the timing chain and sprockets to have a look; and that’s when I found my smoking gun, right where the noise seemed to be originating according to the stethoscope!
The back of the top sprocket has a bright shiny wear mark, where it has been rubbing the block casting around the end of the camshaft. This is clearly the source of my engine rubbing noise, but now the question becomes why it’s rubbing.
The chain is within deflection speck but is a bit worm so I’m going to order a new timing set and compare the back of the new sprocket to the old one, to make sure the old one was correct for a 440.
I’m about to dive into my shop manual, but thought I would post it up here in case someone else gets a similar engine noise.
And I’m also hoping some of you big block gurus can help me out with a guess as to why this might be rubbing, so that I can fix the problem and not just the symptom.