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Valve lifter repair or replacement

1K views 9 replies 6 participants last post by  glnn 
#1 ·
I have a 1967 289 that I have been upgrading with new edelbrock aluminum heads, roller rockers, intake manifold etc. but have left the stock tappet cam and lifters. The engine has a loud clicking noise at the rockers when starting, and it goes away after it starts up. I have tried a few different oil additives to see if that would fix the problem, but it hasn't. I also had to go back and readjust the rockers as the valves became out of adjustment once the engine had run for a while.


Short of replacing cam and lifters, what are my best choices? Can I remove the lifters and service them if I put them back in the same spot? Replace the lifters and hope it doesn't wipe the cam? Let it be for awhile and see what happens? The engine actually sounds fine after it starts, but it really is loud clicking and it is hard to start at first crank.


Thanks for any advice, Mitch
 
#2 ·
Something I have done is to replace a lifter outright. First, though, I disassembled the lifter to determine the issue, which turned out to be a restrictor disc that had cracked. I would start by running the engine with the valve covers off for a short duration. If a restrictor within the lifter has failed, it'll squirt far more oil than the other lifters through the pushrod. Not that that's the only failure mode. It just narrows down the possible faulty lifters with that failure. Your best bet will still be to remove and inspect each lifter individually, either one at a time, or all at once (you can write on them in sharpie to keep track of them without issue). I couldn't find any replacement components, so I replaced just the lifter. It's not ideal, to be sure, but it did last long enough for me to upgrade the camshaft.
 
#5 ·
I believe I repeated the basic cam break-in procedure. I don't remember seeing any abnormal wear on the camshaft when I removed it, so it probably would have lasted at least another 10-20k miles. Hard to say for certain, though.

Still, considering your parts combo, you would benefit from upgrading the cam, and at $3-400 for everything, a worthwhile investment.
 
#6 ·
Mitch, hydraulic lifters should never need adjustment. They're either right, or they're wrong. Depending on how your rockers are set up, there's a lot to setting the geometry correctly, when you use aftermarket heads! Pushrod lengths are really important. If you have solid lifters, well, yes, they'll take some adjusting. But not too many of our cars came with those, and not the ones you'd normally put Eddy heads on.

If something changed significantly from the first startup till now, then something's probably pretty wrong. Once a flat tappet cam has been started, you cannot swap lifters. Not even from bore to bore, unless you want catastrophic failure. Each individual lobe 'gets to know' the lifter it's with, and the patterns in wear that happen as they break in are not the same from one lobe/lifter to the next. Most of the time if you do change where they are, or replace them outright, you cause a situation where the engine might make it 20 miles before you wipe a lobe. Not ideal.

If this was my engine, I'd pull the intake and take a peek to see what's going on! You can turn the motor over with the intake off and watch each lifter to see what's going on. Check for bent pushrods, collapsed lifters, etc. Hopefully you can determine what's damaged before it starts trashing more annoying things like your block! I would also check your oil to see if there's particles of metal in there. If it's nice and sparkly, then there's zero point in bandaid fixes here - might as well tear it down and fix it before everything's trashed from abrasives in the oil.

Were you running ZDDP additives with your flat tappet cam?

It's possible that everything was fine, but due to lack of that particular additive, flat tappet cams with higher-than-stock spring rates do not fare very well for long.


Hope this helps, and welcome to AFM, Mitch!


(and Paul, your engine defies all expectations. lol I love that you just "DO STUFF" and see how it turns out. =)
 
#7 ·
Thanks everybody for your advice. I did purchase correct length hardened pushrods for the roller rockers and added ZDDP additive. I only added about 3/8 turn of preload on the lifter nuts. I will pull the valve covers and inspect the push rods and re-adjust all the valves after the engine is warm up and see if this helps. I guess its possible a rocker adjusting nuts has loosened or the lifter spacing has changed since running the engine. If nothing there, then the intake will come off for further inspection.



I did have some interesting conversations with the folks at crower cam and edelbrock today concerning spring valve seat pressure and open pressure and the fact that the stock cam only has .380 lift. I should have just bought the edelbrock kit which includes the heads and cam. Anyway, the tech at crower said that lifter leak down is normal and just replacing the lifters may not solve clicking at start up with the after market heads and suggested I call edelbrock. The folks at edelbrock said spring pressure at .600 lift is 360# and we estimated spring pressure at .380 lift to be 180#. The tech at edelbrock said this should be OK for my lifters and cam. I found out just replacing the heads is not as simple as it seems.
 
#8 ·
Roller rockers will make a fairly loud clicking noise, especially aluminum ones. If you had to adjust the valves again you probably didn't get the poly lock nut tightened correctly. Go 1/2 turn after 0 lash, tighten the allen screw down snug, then turn the poly lock with a wrench and the allen screw till it comes tight. Maybe give the poly lock a slight counter-clockwise turn before you tighten them both to not go more than the 1/2 turn past 0 lash.
 
#9 ·
Thanks 1966, torquing the roller rocker poly nuts is interesting. I can see how they might not get properly tightened and that might have been the issue So I went back and reset all the valves on the right side of the engine and that fixed the issue. I originally did the valve adjustment after the engine had been apart for a month or two. This time, I did let the engine warm up and pump up the lifters before setting them again. No more clicking and starts right up. While I was down in there I checked the exhaust manifold bolts and I had a few of them had come loose. I ended up having another one loose on the left side as well. I did torque them, but with the aluminum heads the torque was pretty low.


I may have to pull the intake manifold, ugh. I found a small amount of coolant pooled on the left side of the engine timing chain cover below the head/intake manifold joint. I went another 10 ft lbs on intake bolts to see if this will fix the leak. We will see.
 
#10 ·
Just a quick thought concerning the coolant leak. Check the radiator hose clamp to be sure it is tight. If it has a slight leak it usually pools on the left side of the timing chain cover. I have had this problem a couple of times. Check the clamp. Sometimes simple issues can create a big headache.
 
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