From reading some post I guess there is a lifter prob. Is it just a specific brand or all lifters? What is the problem? What happens if I oder lifters from local auto parts, are they going to be defects? Thanks!
Until someone who actually knows chimes in I'll say that from what I've read the quality isn't quite up to scratch lately. It is advised that you disassemble the lifter entirely and clean it thoroughly before re-assembly. I hope that's the 'problem' you where talking about.
Let me try - The problem seems to be that lifters do not hold oil when the engine is not running - they "bleed down". This causes a lot of noise at startup until the lifters are pumped back up again. Another problem that seems to occur is noise while the engine is running. This can be caused by a lifter that collapses and does not pump back up. Both of these problems have been attributed to "bad quality control" lately. Several folks have torn sets of lifters down and reported bits of metal in them. Some guys have cleaned these little chunks of crap out of the lifters out several times, and still had lifters that did not work properly. It has been reported that there are at least two styles of check valves in the lifters. One design uses a ball type seal and seems to work better. These lifters are available from both Postons and TA. This is my interpretation of the posts that I have read on the subject. I have some rather annoying valvetrain noise that will get attended to this winter, but I haven't tried to address the problem yet.
From what I understand there are only two companies that make lifters. Obviously they have been in production a long time. What about the garden variety Eaton rebuilder lifter? Same problem?? Something doesn't jive here?? John
John covered it pretty well, I just went through this process, and went through three sets of lifters. I think there's at least three different vendors making lifters for our engines, but regardless of who, stick with a lifter with a ball check valve in the plunger. Be sure to disassemble (completely) each lifter and clean it with brake cleaner or the equiv. Test your lifters before you put the intake back on. Install all your lifters, pushrods and rockers, use an oil pump primer and while your priming rotate (manually) the engine for about 2 minutes after you achieve initial prime, let the engine sit for 12hrs then remove the rockers, attempt to collapse the lifters using you hand on the pushrod, if you find any that do, reclean them and start the process again. You'll have a good set when all the lifters cannot be collapsed. This is ofcourse no promise that you won't fail a lifter later on but at least it's a good starting point.
Is this a problem with all Buick lifters across the board? I have a 71 350 with a lifter/valvetrain tick, is this something I need to worry about when replacing lifters? Would a be able to use either of these (From PartsAmerica/Schucks) without problem: AE Clevite Engine Parts 2131685 Sealed Power HT969 Thanks, Chris
