I am having an issue with no oil coming up through one of my pushrods and am thinking that maybe I have a bad lifter. I have changed the pushrod and still get no oil. The pushrod is moving up and down like it should when the motor is running. Can a bad lifter still work, but not pump any oil? If it needs replaced, can one lifter be replaced, or do I have to replace them all? I've heard about break-in procedures for lifters, can anyone let me know what I should do to break them in?
I have had this problem on a couple engine and the trouble was the rocker arms . They were worn so no oil could come out of the pushrod. If you have no lifter noise your lifter must be getting oil. Good Luck. Ed K
I didn't know lifters pumped oil. Hydraulic lifters have the oil pressure and such, I know that. Could someone explain a bit more? 0_o
I think the noise that hear is from the lifters, it sounds like a hole in the exhaust system. The exhaust is on my list to be replaced, but it never sounded quite like this until I broke a rocker arm. The arm that broke is the the same one that isn't getting oil too, so I'm guessing that is the problem. I replaced the rocker and it still gets no oil. Also, it acts like the engine is misfiring in one of the cylinders. I'm wondering if it's lifting a little bit, but not enough/long enough to get a good air/fuel mixture to that cylinder.
I'm going off memory and from what i see when the motor is turning over, but the way I understand it is, the lifter fills with oil, and when it rides up on top of the cam lobes, the oil is forced upwards through the top of the lifter through the hole, and up through the hollow pushrod until it reaches the rocker arm and out through the tiny hole in the rocker arm and the other end of the pushrod. It's kind of like if you have a balloon with water and you put a straw in it. If you squeeze the balloon with the straw pointing upwards the water will shoot up through the straw. Now, how the oil get's into the lifter to begin with, is a mystery to me. I haven't had the lifters out in over 20 years, but I was thinking that there is a band around the lifter on the sides, and a hole that sucks oil in. If this isn't correct, can someone let me know? Lifters are one of those things that I never thought too much about, until this problem that I'm having happened, now I want to know how they work and what to look for in the future if I have a problem.
I'll try to explain it..........there is a check valve in the lifter that only lets oil in. Once in there, it can't get out. "Bleed down" or "leak down"refers to what little oil leaks out of the lifter between the tight clearances inside it between the parts (about 1/2 thousandth). The pressure is supplied to them through the oil gallery, they don't suck it in. Basically, only enough oil will enter the lifter that is necessary to fill the space to take up the valve lash. The squirt out the push rod is caused when the hole on the rocker arm lines up with the hole on the end of the push rod for a brief split second when the rocker moves up and down. Your problem is a bad lifter I'm nearly certain........it happenned to me on a ford once, the seat is worn out smooth and will not let oil past it to the push rod. Just replace all 16 lifters, you break them in by running the motor no slower than 1500 rpm when first started for about 15 minutes. Idling the motor will cause the camshaft to gall during this critical break in period. Now I don't build race motors, but that's my take on this subject.:bglasses:
Is it possible to only replace one lifter, instead of all of them? I wanted to take the car to the Woodward Dream Cruise this coming weekend, but don't have the time to order a new set from T/A and get it here in time for the cruise. I was hoping to change the bad one, for the time being, and get the new set in the next couple of weeks, but I don't want to harm the motor by getting in too big of a hurry.
You could replace just one, but the rest probably aren't too far behind and I would bet you have some other worn parts also. I would not want to drive a car on a long trip when some of the parts are not getting enough oil. How many miles are on the motor?
Scott, just a word of caution from someone that is seriously mechanically challenged. But I can tell you of my most recent screwup, in hopes that it won't happen to you. Last spring I had been racing my BB GS some and it developed a lifter tick that showed up only after running it hard. Had all the lifters replaced and torched the cam within a few miles. Ground off the #6 exhaust lobe. I spoke with both Jim Burek and Jim Weise and was told NOT to replace lifters without replacing the cam at the same time. It's certainly possible the lifters were not broken in properly, but the guys that did the work have never messed up like that before. Just want to give you a heads up. You might want to call and check with either of the Jim's- Burek (915) 855-6009 or Weise (763) 422-8685. They are great to work with. Good luck.:3gears:
The motor itself only has 245 miles on it, but the valvetrain came out of the original motor and has 98,000 miles on it. For some reason, my dad didn't replace the lifters when he got the new shortblock. I seem to remember them being very hard to find back in the early 80s. Some places that we looked for them at, didn't believe Buick made a 455, they told us that we had to have had an Olds or Pontiac motor in it. :moonu: The rest of the valvetrain are pumping good, when I took the valve covers off and started the motor, I ended up with oil all over the inner fender on the side I took off, just that one that won't oil. I'm just looking at running to the cruise and back, which is about 10 miles from me, and maybe up and down the route once or twice, which would come out to around 40 or 50 miles total, but some of those miles could be just sitting in traffic, depending on how many people go.
That's not too good...........it's a bad idea to use lifters over unless they have very low miles and you have them re-ground.......even then it's a bad idea. If your shortblock is that new, save yourself the trouble of doing the job half assed twice and just replace the camshaft and install new lifters. Now would also be a great time to do the heads and valvetrain as well...........when you cut corners it always comes back to bite you in the :moonu: :bglasses:
