lifter noise

[denguy]

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My 91 Festy has what sounds like one lifter that clatters for a while on start up after the car sits a few days. How can I tell which one it is and what do I have to do to put in a new one?
thanks

What can go wrong if I don't replace the bad lifter?
thanks again

[gauge_half_inch]

It would be best to just replace them all. Think of it this way, if one got clogged, what condition will the others be in? What I have done with good success is go to the j/y gather up a couple sets (or all you can find). They should just pop out with a little tug. If not, leave it find more. What worked well for me was to get some simple green/mean green an empty 20 oz bottle and some fresh oil. You will need a pair of nice pliers/ small channel locks work also, and a pic or paper clip. Fill the bottle half way with the cleaner, drop em in. Shake the snot out of em. I have a subwoofer up against the back of my seat, I wedges the bottle in there for a few days and jammed out(makeshift sonic cleaner). Once the outsides looked nice and shiney, I moved on to cleaning the insides. Find a sallow bowl or cup, add some fresh cleaner. Empty out the bottle and hlas. Apply a little pressure to the hla and depress the ball in the bottom with the pick. All the old mast oil hoop will shoot out, be carefull to not wear anything important. It can get messy. Do this a couple times for all of them. Then after not much is comming out, compress them again, releave the pressure and do not let go untill they are submursed in the cleaner. Repeat that a few times. Once thay are all nice and clean, do it again only instead of releasing them under the cleaner do it in the fresh oil. Acre you have them all pumped up with fresh oil. Try to compress all of them without pressing thd relief ball. If they are solid, there keepers, if not try the releaseing them again under the oil. If they still are not firm, toss em.

[GenevaDirt]

^^yes, yes and yes

[fastivaca]

Awesome write-up. I believe some stickiness should be applied.

Sent from my SGH-I727R using Tapatalk 2

[nitrofarm]

:nono:

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My 91 Festy has what sounds like one lifter that clatters for a while on start up after the car sits a few days. How can I tell which one it is and what do I have to do to put in a new one?
thanks

What can go wrong if I don't replace the bad lifter?
thanks again

It's usually simple to find.Pull the valve cover and sometimes you get lucky and the motor has stopped with the bad HLA on the back side of the cam lobe.You will be able to see day light in between the valve tip and rocker tip.(Thats not good,they should all be solid and no air gap) If not just rotate your your engine by hand through the firing order, while looking at each valve tip on the back side of the cam lobe. Hope that answers your question.Then if you want to clean them follow Gauge's cleaning advice.I'm guessing our next question will be how to remove/re_install HLA's.There should be lots to "Find" when you hit the "Search". But I have one simple bit of advice.The bolts that hold the valve train rail down can be stripped. Here's what separates the "Wrench's" from the "Newb's". These bolts...Remove them with equal amount of turns, and re-install them with equal amount of turns. You never want to have one bolt trying to fight the valve spring pressure during the entire process. Have a great day,and let us know how it went. Changing these is easy and can really smooth out your idle.
edit: To answer your last question sometimes nothing will happen & sometimes it gets worse.And sometimes they can get so bad @ RPM's that the valve tip can start to "Mushroom". This is because they are actually banging together:nono:

[iceracerdude]

I have to agree with all Gauge 1/2" said, but would like to put a finer point on it.
Since when you do it his way, you'll obviously have the rocker arm shafts off.
While you have the HLA's out of the rocker arms notice that they get fed through two very, VERY small oil holes. Clean these out with one single strand of a peice of multi-strand automotive wire. Because after all, a clean HLA that can't get that precious oil delivered to it, is no longer an HLA. Then it gets callled a CLICKER. By the way, pay attention to how the rocker bars go back on, because the oil receiving holes must be facing down. Make sure the engine is a TDC before you start on this job.

If you look closely at the very tips of these rocker arms, you can see the pin hole sized holes in them:



http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/1992/pict0241.jpg

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[denguy]

The Festy Shop Manual has a note about checking the lifter buy pushing down on the lifter end of the rocker arm and if it moves down, that lifter is bad.
Anybody tried this?

[nitrofarm]

The Festy Shop Manual has a note about checking the lifter buy pushing down on the lifter end of the rocker arm and if it moves down, that lifter is bad.
Anybody tried this?

I'm at a loss for words dude. Seriously-

[Hot_Wheels]

This is not true! They just want you to buy new hlas. What happends is gunk builds up on the check ball causeing it not to seat and seal. If you clean the gunk ang it pumps back up its fine. If after cleaning it dos
dnt then replace. I hear tgere is a way to remove the ball though

[denguy]

Is there any way at all to shoot some kind of solvent onto that ball without taking everything apart?

[Hot_Wheels]

On the flat bp hlas I jyst used carb cleaner with a straw worked perfect

[roycehof]

My ocaasionally clicking HLAs haven't click since I did the SeaFoam treatment to it over a year ago. Prior to that I would get clicking about once a week or whenever it sat for a while. It might be a coincidence, but it is worth a try before taking anything apart.

[denguy]

Roycehof..........could you refresh the seafoam treatment for me?

[Larry Hampton]

I had one of my shaft bolts strip the threads in the head (by a P/O) and I had to buy a timesert kit. I also made a guide to make sure I was drilling 90 degrees to the head.

[blkfordsedan]

I had one of my shaft bolts strip the threads in the head (by a P/O) and I had to buy a timesert kit. I also made a guide to make sure I was drilling 90 degrees to the head.

I bought a "remanufactured" head for a B8 several years ago. When I got it running, I could never get the HLA's on one end of the motor to stop clattering. I pulled the valvetrain apart numerous times and cleaned everything, checking for clogged passages, etc., but it still clattered. Then on the 4th or 5th teardown, I happened to notice that one of the rocker shaft bolt holes in the head had been repaired with a helicoil. When they installed the helicoil they didn't get it installed right and the rocker shaft would not fully seat into the saddle on the head (lacked about .0015"). The particular saddle happend to be the one that had the oil feed passage to the rocker shaft, so it wasn't sending a full oil supply the the rockers on one side. I removed the helicoil and replaced it with a new one, put it back together, and no more clatter!