Noise from lifters after rebuild buick 455

INdeed - I think if I were you (OP), I'd drop the oil out and put some 5W-20 in there for a little bit and see what happens. 15W-40 is also WAY too heavy. You really do need to be running 10W-30, however 5W-20 will work great for the break-in period. Also - I hope you followed a good camshaft break-in procedure....sounds like you may not have - especially if you were running too heavy of an oil - which I suspect you were.

I'd like to see a good picture of this. Got any links?

 

Thanks for reply. I used 5w30 syntetich for breakin prosedure. I got a water leak and noise from the rockers (i lubricated by hand until the oil came out of the pushrods, took a few minutes). So the important breakin prosedure failed.

 

Well, I can tell you that I don't like the sound of that. I hope you mean you were idling at 2000-2500 rpm because that is where you should be for breaking in a new cam. Not idling at 800 rpm.

That being said you should be getting oil squirting out of the tops of the rocker arms and getting it all over the place without those valve covers on. That is your problem. It doesn't matter if you had straight 50 oil in there it should still be circulating. The 20W-50 might be hard on the distributer gear on cold startup but it should still be coming out of those pushrod tips.

Also forget roller rockers. Don't waste time unless you actually have all defective stock rockers. For the most part rollers are noisier than the stockers otherwise GM would be using them for quieter engines. It still comes down to no oil up there.

We just ran into a problem with my buddies 455 which we put a used cam in with unknown lifters that were matched to the cam. He bought it used and it looked very good as far as the lobes go. It started fine but didn't really deliver much oil to the rockers, barely a few drops and no squirting. Plenty of oil pressure. Needless to say the cam didn't last very long. So we installed a new cam with a set of Crower Cam Saver lifters and there is oil all over the place now. It is the strangest thing I ever saw in a 455 where the lifters just wouldn't get oil up through the pushrod. I took one apart and it seemed fine?????? I wish I knew what brand they were and yet they worked fine in the engine that they came out of. Strange.

Just for fun while the intake was off after the new cam was in but before the pushrods were installed we primed the oil pump with a drill and oil came out all over the Crower lifters and one old lifter I slid in a hole just for fun barely had any coming out. The amount cut down once the pushrods were installed and barely any came out of the pushrods when primed but once started the oil came to the rockers within seconds(all good lifters of course.). I believe it takes movement of the lifter through its cycle to allow a decent flow of oil up to the rockers. Priming a static engine just won't do it. I'd pop the intake and do the primer trick to see what you are dealing with. If you don't have oil coming out the tops of the lifters you've got problems.

One thing to check when the intake is off is to make sure there is no cam damage by observing that all the lifters are rising about the same amount as the engine is cranked. The differences between some of the lobes on my buddies cam was easy to see when cranked.

One other thought. Is there a chance you have a set of the '69 and earlier lifters that don't oil through the pushrods? Anyway you do it get the intake off and prime it up with a drill and see what happens.

 

Break in was with a break in oil from miller 5w30 and i added a zddp additive. Now i use 5w30 with ZDDP,because the mainsbearing clearance is only 0.025".
What clearance have you on the mains? Your oil pressure should be 50 PSI and hot 30 PSI at 700 RPM.

Check your rocker arm place holders, i mean the with plastic things, i saw one cracked and the rockarm was able to slide and stuck in the direction of the shaft. This action can produce worse sound.

 

I have two engines with that cam and both have a bit of a sewing machine sound. They were built by two different people, so I think you are hearing what is normal for that cam.

As for potential oiling issues, that's a whole other matter.

 

Check the lifters and make sure they are correct. I have attached a picture of a correct 455 Hyd lifter. I did a 409/425 with a Z71 cam and had the same issue, no oil in the top end. It turned out that the lifters were not cut enough for the high lift cam. We machined the inset on the lifter and all was good. I dont know if that is your problem but it is worth checking the lifters. You need to get oil to the top end or you will smoke your rockers. If the bottom is getting good oil then it has to be something from the cam up.<o></o>
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Nelson

 

Thanks for responding. I did bring the engine up to 2000rpm when cam break in. The trouble with to little oil to the rockers i troubleshooted later. I will start with taking the intake off. Thanks !

---------- Post added at 08:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:07 AM ----------

Yes, i hawe heard that many Buick 455 engina have trouble with noise from valve Train. The noise in my engine is so bad that i can hear it inside the car, so i asume it is something wrong. I also have the "oil to rockers" issue. Thanks !

---------- Post added at 08:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:10 AM ----------

Thanks Nelson. The pushrods are from TA so i assume they are the correct ones.

---------- Post added at 08:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:14 AM ----------

One question please: The Crower cam saver lifters get more oil to the cam lobes, but will i get more oil to the rocker arms ? Thanks ! Its not like i am not getting any oil to the rockers, there is oil circulating, but it takes 2 minutes to get oil to the rockers during startup Cold engine and not so much oil coming at idle.

 

Update: I took the intake off. The lifters and camshaft looks Nice ( i am not an expert). When i primed the oil pump the lifters are bleeding. The rockerarms and shaft are not on the engine now. So i "faked" a preload by hand on the pushrod number 1 sylinder and primed the oil pump at the same time and no oil came to the top of the pushrod. It looks like all the oil are leaking out of the lifters. Maybe i have the wrong lifters ? Or wrong pushrods. (pushrods are TA1428. ) This is a YOUTUBE link that shows the bleeding of the lifters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TULuQJ6zt5o What do you thiunk about that ? Is it correct that some oil should bleed out the lifters to lubricate the camshaft ?

 

Is this the same engine? http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?254926-Collapsed-lifters&highlight=setting+lifters

 

Those look like Chevrolet lifters to me....they're identical to the Buick's, except the external oil passage part of the lifter is lower on the body than the Buick's.

I have an old sbc lifter that I use for checking valve clearance. I used it in my 455 the other day in fact. Side by side they look the same except for that oil passage. They're same height and dia.

I'll take pictures of the two different types side by side tomorrow and post it up here.

 

Ys it is the same engine

---------- Post added at 04:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:06 AM ----------

Thanks ! What lifters will you recommend ?

---------- Post added at 05:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:07 AM ----------

Thanks , that would be Nice. I found the recipt from TA. It says: TA1405 lifters, TA1450 Retainers, TA1107 Springs

 

You posted that I mentioned pushrods but I assume you meant lifters as the quote.<o></o>
Anyway the width of your lifters looks ok but I do notice a couple of differences. One being the depth of the cut for the oil passage and the other being the hole size in the cup where the pushrod seats. If you have a couple of 455 lifters even the old ones you could change int & ext on one cylinder and see how it oils. You do not need to turn the engine over so no worry about it hurting the cam. Run your oil primer and see if the oil feeds better to the top end in the cylinder that you changed the lifters. That should hopefully narrow down the problem. Maybe the cup hole is so big it bleeds pass the ball and does not feed the pushrod. <o></o>I have attached a few pictures. <o></o>
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Nelson

 

Ok, took some pictures of these lifters this morning. The Buick lifter is on top, Chevrolet on the bottom...



On the Chevrolet lifter, the oil passage begins at 7/8" up from the cam end and ends at 1 7/16". The oil passage on the Buick lifter is moved upwards 1/8".

Looking at the pictures of your lifters - I swear that's a Chevrolet lifter. Chevrolet used the same lifter in nearly all their modern flat tappet hydraulic cam engines. However when you look up lifter part numbers on various parts sites, the part number for a Buick engine lifter is clearly different than the part number for the Chevrolets. It will be interesting to see what the final outcome of this conundrum ends up being. I am subscribed.

 

The Sealed Power p/n for a standard Chevrolet lifter is HT817, the Sealed Power p/n for a Buick 455 lifter is HT969. HOWEVER - when I do an application check on both of those part numbers, they both say they fit just about anything GM made from the mid 60's all the way up to the late 80's. So I reckon I don't know what the deal is. I just know that Buick lifters have always looked different than Chevrolet lifters to me. Those lifters you have are Chevrolet lifters.

 

BBB lifters were discontinued years ago, they are all .842 chev lifters.

 

Thanks ! The lifters should be TA1405 , i belive they are GM made by Delphi.

 

You are correct, the 1405 lifter in your pic is a Delfi check ball style lifter. In my pics below you can see a Seal Power HT969 that is 10 + years old and it is made by Johnson is .842 and what I find interesting is the Comp solids I just bought uses the same body as that old Johnson lifter. The other lifter in the pic that has a snap ring is the TA solid lifter.

 

The pictures I posted are of the new lifters that I just ordered from Scott Brown. I was going to order the Johnson lifters but I was told the Micro-Trol were a little better. So the pictures are of the Micro-Trol Hyd lifter for Buick. <o></o>
I hope some of this helps<o></o>
Nelson<o></o>
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Lunati's Micro-Trol lifters are designed for performance applications where precise oil control is an absolute necessity. The precise oil control allows higher rpm potential. To obtain maximum performance from this lifter, the plunger is held in place by a full contact snap ring. It's specially designed to be an integral part of the lifter assembly, unlike wire clip locking rings that come apart at high rpms, destroying the lifter.<o></o>

 

I will e-mail you also but the other push rod I checked had a different thread count, the TA push rod should be .030 for one full rotation so do 2 full rotations for now.

Nelson, those lifters in your pic's have the same body but they are either a hi rev or solid because they have a "C" clip/snap ring. The Hydraulic lifter has a wire clip.