Suddenly it's Hammer Time !!

[Trevor loves holden.]

 

[vs-lover]

Well it's been a while since anything was added to this thread, but....................................we now have some finality.


The offending lifter has been sitting in a jar of thinners on my work bench since the initial removal from the vehicle and I've taken it out many times from the jar and slammed it on to a piece of jarrah on the bench but without any success of the plunger budging.

Well I did the same thing today only to finally see some movement of the plunger inside. From there I took my taper end timber probe and pushed it into the plunger and twisted it. Yep it's finally come out and boy was there still heaps of crud inside the body. Whatever was jamming it has finally either softened or broken down being in thinners all this time.

I've cleaned it all up and taken a photo for all to see, but I'm sure if I took all other 11 lifters apart and cleaned them then I'm sure they could go another round or two. Regardless of what's happened I now have a new set inside the engine and they are performing as they should so a spare set on hand won't go astray I'm sure.

 

[Trevor loves holden.]

 

[vs-lover]

FINAL UPDATE !

I've just done the remaining 11 lifters and as suspected another lifter was in the process of the same thing happening as it to had the plunger ever so slightly depressed and jammed. This one eventually came apart with a bit of persuasion as did another as well that was really tight, but nothing like the original lifter that brought all this issue to light being jammed with the plunger very much in the down position which in turn created the massive clacking in the first place. This has been created by very poor servicing and poor quality oil being used as the sludge content inside some of these lifters was horrific.

So now all the lifters are fully cleaned out, oiled and reassembled ready to go into the next vehicle that develops the all mighty Hammertime !

 

[Skylarking]

Interesting that once the lifters are cleaned, they are ok to reuse

From what I understand, on the old 5 litre V8 it’s easier to pull the lifters from the engine without spending lots of $$ as no need to take the heads off. So maybe it should be a planned maintenance task every 100,000 odd kms.

Pity the LS3 need new head gaskets and head bolts, amongst other bits, just to get the lifters out to clean them. Makes such planned maintenance more expensive since the lifters are under the heads themselves what were the engineers thinking

 

[losh1971]

View attachment 208859

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[vs-lover]

From what I understand, on the old 5 litre V8 it’s easier to pull the lifters from the engine without spending lots of $$ as no need to take the heads off.

The V6 is pretty much the same, all you need to do is remove all the valley gear and then the roller rockers along with the push rods. Then undo and remove the plastic lifter buckets and the lifters are there to just put your fingers around and withdraw from the block.

It's all about methodically doing the job and doing the exact same to each lifter in the process.

Referring back to the lifters themselves, if a mechanic was doing the job they'd just replace the lifters as I originally did and they'd never disassemble and thoroughly clean each lifter as that just takes way too much time which would add many $$$$ to the end job, but for me time is not the issue, it's all about the quality of the job outcome, and the car performs flawlessly. Just could do with an A/C gas top up as it's low on gas as it was when I purchased the vehicle.

 

[Trevor loves holden.]

Wounder if that valve cleaner additive works?

 

[vs-lover]

Nothing like solid hard mechanical abrasive cleaning opposed to snake oil additives that create more issues than they solve.

 

[Immortality]

Interesting that once the lifters are cleaned, they are ok to reuse

From what I understand, on the old 5 litre V8 it’s easier to pull the lifters from the engine without spending lots of $$ as no need to take the heads off. So maybe it should be a planned maintenance task every 100,000 odd kms.

Pity the LS3 need new head gaskets and head bolts, amongst other bits, just to get the lifters out to clean them. Makes such planned maintenance more expensive since the lifters are under the heads themselves what were the engineers thinking

Roller lifters don't have the critical lifter/lobe interface so it's not a major. It is possible to re-use flat tappet lifters but it takes a bit of skill to re-lap the bottom of the lifter to get the correct shape. It's not something a back yard mechanic would do.

V6 lifters are cheap, even the LS7 upgrade lifters are fairly reasonably priced and a better product. When replacing lifters in the LS motors, don't forget the lifter buckets....