Okay so i just finished a 4 speed conversion on a 70 dart swinger and it was a a904 trans and swapped it out with a a833 trans non O/D everything went together fine, but i went to start it up and first off there was a valve tap?? By the way i'm 19 years old so I don't have AS much as experience as someone who has been in this field a long time. But also when i went to push in the clutch it was making like a grinding/clashing noise when I got the pedal almost to the floor like a 1/8 inch from the ground. When i pushed the clutch to the floor it made that sound and the car just stalled out and the clutch pedal stuck to the floor. Now i have no clutch return or anything. Does anyone know what could have happened??? please let me know if you have any ideas. thank you!

Valve tapping? Theres no reason that the inside of the motor should have been affected by the swap. If you had to modify the exhaust for the swap, maybe you are hearing an exhaust leak?
The grinding sound....with your hand on the shifter, can you feel a corresponding vibration in the shifter? If so, the clutch linkage could be binding or just out of adjustment.
What type of clutch and pressure plate did you use? If it had what appears to be multiple flat steel "fingers" where the throwout bearing rides, then it is a Diaphragm design. These usually require one extra step to work correctly: Under the dash, where the clutch pedal swings/pivots from, there is a thick spring. This is called the OVERcenter spring. It needs to be removed for the clutch pedal to work properly. I have an ongoing project car that acts just like yours. It has the Diaphragm clutch and is too soft. To me, that equates to slippage under a heavy load. I'll probably swap to a stiffer clutch by the time this car actually sees street duty.
Finally..... Make sure that the transmission shifter linkage is adjusted properly. It sounds unlikely, but it IS possible to have the linkage adjusted just wrong enough to partially engage TWO gears at the same time. This WILL stall the motor for certain.

Yup, exhaust/header leaks often sound like valvetrain noise.

What kind of pressure plate, 3 finger or diaphragm? Did you try to grab the pedal and pull it up manually? Did you install the clutch disc in the proper orientation?

yes it really was a job to do this. also it is a finger style pressure plate. I jacked it up last night and saw that the release bearing just snapped??? him baffled by how this happened. so I ripped the granny out last night everything seems to be fine but the release bearing.and could the valve tap be caused by when I turned over the engine by hand??

The valve tapping noise could have been the T/O bearing breaking. Was it making this noise before you started the swap? Did you modify the exhaust system, or have to unbolt it? These are other things to look at.

Ddi you double check to be sure the clutch disk is facing the right way?

If you turned crank backwards during flywheel or pressure plate install, it could have pulled some oil out of a lifter causing brief ticking on startup. Sounds nuts, but it does happen sometimes.

Quote:

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If you turned crank backwards during flywheel or pressure plate install, it could have pulled some oil out of a lifter causing brief ticking on startup.

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You're kidding, right ?!?!?!?

Not really.

No way turning the engine backwards will remove oil from a lifter. Lifters don't know or care which way an engine turns.