firemn131

Good Morning.
Well, will finish reassembly of all of the lifters today. I ended up taking them completely apart and ultra sonic cleaning. I wasn't going to totally disassemble the small check valve with the ball and spring. I destroyed the first one with heavy hands on pliers. I then found that I could pop the ball retainer off with just constant finger pressure. The check valves did still have some varnish/crud after a long ultrasonic bath.

After cleaning they were left disassembled for a few days and sprayed with WD40.

Reassembly had several stations.

1. Draining out the WD and blowing out with shop air
2. Rinsing in alcohol
3. Spraying down with brake cleaner
4. Blowing out again
5. warming the bucket with heat gun.
6. Dropping it in a cup of warm Brad Penn, filling them turning on side with vent hole up.

Then cleaning the check valves and springs and assembly.

Reassembly

1. Filled the check valve bucket with oil, then inserter the CV piston while depressing the check ball to get all air out and allowing oil to disperse.
2. Install the piston about 1/2 way back in the bucket while submerged in the warm oil.
3. Placed assembled lifter with a bit of oil in the bucket.

I realize that much of this is probably overkill.
But,

Reading so much, that I am unsure if these should be pumped/primed up at all. Could having that much hydraulic pressure against all of the lifters/cams be an issue for start up? I cant seem to find anything definitive.

Should I just take the center piston out, fill the buckets and depress the check valve all the way and reinstall, leaving the check valve with just initial spring tension and no hydraulics?

Thanks for the replies.


Best,

John

joejoe

Prime them... when assembled the ones needing to be compressed will be and oil expelled others will be full. ( if that makes sense)

Bigfoot928

they will be nearly empty by the time you complete cam timing and cranking it around by hand.

firemn131

Thanks Gents,

One less thing to obsess over.

Kevin in Atlanta

Prime, but expect that some or all of the oil will leak out as Sterling says.

But, to add to the discussion, if you prime the oil pump, use aa correctly sized hose to loop the oil at the block, fill the engine full of oil and use an electric drill to push out the oil then the loss of oil in the lifters might not be much when oil is already present.

I've read that Greg points the hole in the lifter up when he places them the heads. I would assume this allows the air to be pushed out easier.

Ad0911

After all this preparation, how did the plunger feel to compress? Can you push it in with your thumb or do you need big force (vice) to push the plunger in?

firemn131

All plungers are solid.

firemn131

All plungers are solid.

Now I am confident that I should have been an orthopedic or neurosurgeon.

Average time to disassemble clean and reassemble was about 15 minutes each.
This doesn’t count the cumulative hour spent looking for the small springs that escaped 4x. Lots of prayers tonight.

So that is 8 hours not counting the several hours to do the ultrasonic cleaning. The new ones are looking cheaper every day.

Ad0911

The reason for asking is because I have 2 sets for my 1978 16V engine. One set (My original set) feels solid. I can only push the plunger with a vice. They return immediately after relieving the force on the plunger. I cleaned the lifters in a hot ultrasonic bath and primed them with engine oil. The second set I have came with a spare engine. The lifters I could push the plunger with my thumb. I have asked around but still don't know how they should be.

GregBBRD

Install them. They will do what they need to do.