My new rocker arms and pushrods came in , so putting valve train together on my ‘62 Mercury 260 V8. Concerning the lifters,Tom Monroe’s book said to just oil through the side oil hole until full, using a pump oil can. That wasn’t working too well as the tip on my can doesn’t fit in the area of the lifters hole very well. So I figured I’d do what I remembered doing in the past- drop them in a pan submerged in oil until they’re pumped up. On the first box of lifters, one of them pumped up solid like solid lifter would feel. The other 3 I pumped until I quit getting air bubbles out. Problem is the other 3 didn’t pump up “solid “, they still have about 1/8” of travel in the plunger. So, before I do the next 12, are those 3 soft ones OK? Will they pump up when the engine is prelubed or on engine start up? Thanks
Everything will change when you get some actual pressure in them. Pre lube the whole engine before start up and everything should be fine.
Thanks. I hope so. After posting this I kept going. 2nd box of lifters had 3 that pumped up, and one soft. All in all only 4 got pumped up. Others are anywhere from soft to semi-pumped. Just never ran into this in the past.
Nope... I'm a Heathen... I make a mess with the engine running, and then clean up the mess afterward's.
I soak the lifters in a container with oil just covering all the lifters by a 1/4", all lifters standing upright and leave then for an hour or so, sometimes over night.
I've always used the firing order method. However, his method should work fine; it's really the same thing.
I have often taken apart and cleaned hydraulic lifters and reinstalled, when any were ticking or when I was overhauling the engine. I never bothered filling them, just lightly oiled them and they always work just fine. They have a check valve or check ball on the top, and are fed pressurized oil, so there should be no problem driving out the air in seconds.
Drop them in a container, all facing up, just enough oil to totally cover them up as above, 1/4 to 1/2 inch, pump them up with a push rod by hand until the bubbles stop and they get hard, some are almost solid, some have a little play. Put them in, take a small paper clip and bend a small "L" in one end of the paper clip, adjust rocker arm down until I can just slid paper clip between plunger and plunger clip in lifter with each lifter on the bottom of the cam lobe then tighten the poly-loc nut and call it done, put intake on, valve covers on, prime motor and fire it up. Break in cam as stated and drive it. Never ever removed a valve cover again on the motors I've built doing it this way.... ...
I never bother filling them with oil, they all seem to fill up just fine when I run the oil pump with a drill before firing up the engine.
On my Chevy I used an old pushrod in a drill press chuck. I use the drill press like an arbor press and pumped the lifters up and down while fully submerged in a container of oil
With my Lunati cam and lifter package, the instructions said NOT to pump up the lifters before they went in. I just smeared them with ***embly lube. I did pre-oil the engine prior to start up.
Yes, some of mine are solid, but some are just as soft as before I got the air out, some are in between. I would go on pumping for another 20-25 strokes after the last air bubble came out. That’s what I was worried about, if the soft ones were bad or something. I’ve installed them all at this point as it seems they are OK.
when the engine is idling, the lifters are being "pumped" a few hundred times a minute, plus there's oil being injected into the side hole at 20 PSI or so. No way I can duplicate that before I install the lifters!
I think of all the ones I soaked in a clean pan of oil overnight and got messy pumping them up with a push rod after that. This was something p***ed down.. maybe a bourbon legend perhaps...
Only oil my lifters get before firing is ***embly lube on the external surfaces during installation. I adjust by watching the rockers begin to move and then setting the opposite rocker for the cylinder. I prime my engine's oiling system, and drop in the distributor and they're ready to fire. No mess, no readjustment, and never a problem.
No manufacturer that I am aware of recommends pumping up lifters prior to ***embly. In fact, most tell you to NOT do that.
Manufacturer's rules rule. Back in the day, most cams and lifters came with not much with else with them. Sharp counter guys threw us a tube of cam lube when we bought them at one place. Sometimes we consulted that greasy Motors Manual, otherwise we counted on the experience that someone who had done a cam or 3 in their past, and they were willing to share that with us. The fact that we used cam lube put us light-years ahead of anyone else on a local level. I recall installing the cam, etc and pouring a can of STP over the works before the intake went on.
The shop I used years ago, I asked about the roller hydraulic lifters I has and said “I’ll put them in oil and pump them up” They said no, prime the engine and you be fine. It was, and I was. This engine was a mess to work with (OT) to get both VCs off, so followed their advice and no issues. Been a few years, but don’t recall(may have had it) any clatter on start up.
Late to the game... I've had the occasional lifter not 'pump up'. You don't want/need the lifter to pump up as that can lock up the lifter and give you incorrect preload/lash. Lifter will bleed down, eventually, but when new the clearances are very tight, tightest clearances in the whole engine I'd wager. In my paranoia of not wanting to have to deal with a possible faulty part I'll pump up the lifter to see if it will function and check for any machining gunk coming out of the metered orfice when depressing the metering disc. If it feels stiff and there's contaminants coming out of the orfice, I'll dis***emble the lifter to verify cleanliness and correct ***embly. If the lifter doesn't hold pressure, squishy, this may indicate a problem(missing check valve) as well. When 'blue printing' an engine everything should be verified anyway. Not just clearances, functionality as well. Under normal operation, with proper adustment. When the lifter is on the base circle, check valve is open, oil pressure keeps the lifter full, metering plate allows correct amount of oil flow into the upper valvetrain. When the lifter begins to be compressed by the ramp of the camshaft lobe(and valve spring) the increase in pressure inside the lifter body closes the check valve. This effectively turns the lifter into a solid lifter during lobe lift. As the lifter is pushed up the oil fill port is misaligned from the oil gallery, preventing any potential m*** leak down. When the lifter completes its timed cycle and returns to the base circle, pressure is relieved from the check valve allowing the plunger to float and oil flow back up through the pushrod to lubricate the upper valvetrain. If any part of the hydraulic lifter fails to function properly valve operation will be greatly affected. Not only in lift but timing as well. TL;DR Inspect each lifter if there appear to be differences in functionality. Most likely there will be slight, inconsequential, differences. Best to test and verify now rather than later.
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