while putting my engine togetther i noticed that i couldn't push in some of the hydrolic lifters (A on picture)
i was wondering if that is normal (because lifter is filled with oil?) or that some sludge inside the lifter make it stuck?
as seen on pic i have opened and cleaned the lifters and noticed on some that there was some oilsludge inside.
ohh yes i know new lifters are not that expensive ...but i just wanna know how everything works.. and if i can keep it working ;-)
btw... are SBI a good quality hydrolic lifters ?




thank you
arthur

 

They should take a fair amount of pressure to depress, especially if there's oil in them.

You are putting these back on the same cam lobe you took them off of, right?

 

yup.. on same cam... i started to doubt since some could be depressed quite easily and some i couldn't at all ( after cleaning i was able to depress but not as easy as some of the others)

anyway.. in meantime i have bought some new ones... found some new SBI hydraulics lifters on the net from someone who changed his mind and went to solid cam...with shipping total was 25 euro so it was not the money but the waiting for the new ones to arrive that bothered me

arthur

 

Not just the same cam, but each lifter HAS to go back in the hole that it came out of. If you put a flat tappet lifter back on a lobe that it didn't come off of, they're worn slightly differently and will most likely eat each other up. If you didn't keep your lifters in order, you're in trouble.

 

Well, he said he found new lifters, so he should be ok. Just make sure you go through a standard cam breakin procedure before driving the car.

 

yup.. got new lifters.... but i also had kept the old ones in right order.

arthur

 

old lifters are fine, they are REALLLLY hard to pump down when they have oil in them. best bet is to tear down individually and clean em up, then they will be oil free (well, you'd wanna lulbe them when rebuilding) and they will pump down.

btw, SBI is fine. we have used their valves many times for various motors without any problems.

 

Ifyou want to test your old lifters....chuck an old pushrod into a drill press and then use the press to operate the lifter. You can also submerge the lifter in a can of oil and use this drill-press method to pre-lube the lifter before it is installed.