Noisy Aspire lifters

[TominMO]

Stuck a new head gasket on my Aspire recently. In the process, I also changed from the Matt D. MPG cam back to a stock cam. The lifters are now very noisy. I went back in there and made sure everything looked OK; all the HLAs squish easily with my fingers. But it's like they aren't getting any oil through the tubes. It's very clattery, like a diesel engine. All the oil holes line up, two for the exhaust side and one for the intake side. Was I supposed to pre-load the lifter tubes with oil before assembly?

I let it run for a few minutes, hoping that it needed time for the oil to get up to the lifters. But it didn't get better.

[rmoltis]

When I installed my brand new lifters,
The route that I went with was to leave them dry, that way installation was a breeze.
Makes it easy to line things up and torque down rather that pumped solid lifters.

Then I disconnected the spark plug wires and cranked it a few times to get oil into them.
Then after a few rounds of that fired her up, let her idle for 5mins.
Then went for a gentle drive until the clatter slowly went away.
Then nothing but silence.
All in all it was probably 20mins or less total from the time I started cranking over the car to the end of the drive cycle when the sound went away completely.
After the first 5-10mins the sound was significantly quieter. And then slowly tapered off from there.
So I'd say go take her for a gentle drive and see if the sound goes away as the vehicle warms up.

And if that doesn't work then start replacing.

[zoom zoom]

From what I understand they should not be pre pumped or anything. They need to be collapsed when installed. Just like you did it. If they're really easy to squish with your finger you have a problem tho. There's a check valve/ball bearing and spring in the top that keeps them pressurized when the lobe comes around and puts pressure on them. If they don't pump up and hold they could be gummed up or broken. Usually running them for awhile kills the clatter but if it doesn't might want to think about replacing them.

I was told by iceracerdude that the way to check for bad lifters is to push the lifter down(cam lobe pointing down away so its full range of motion) and if the lifter collapses before the valve opens it needs replaced.

[TominMO]

Thanks guys. I'm gonna do an oil flush and change, then take it for a drive. Hopefully that will fix it up. I do have spare lifters to stick in there too.

[TominMO]

Just got back in from working on the Aspire.
1. Warmed up the motor, then drained the oil; left old filter on.
b. Put in new oil, and left room for a bottle of Sea Foam; let it idle for 10 minutes, then drained it again. Quite dirty.
III. Installed new filter and new oil.
D. Pulled the valve cover and sucked out some old oil still in the head with a small plastic syringe and vacuum hose.
5. Installed brand-new HLAs (hydraulic lash adjusters).
f. Started motor and let it idle up to temp, then ran it up to 3000 rpm for ~15 seconds a few times. The third time, all the clacking and ticking went away. Purrs like a kitten again. :-)

[rmoltis]

nice, so the solution was just to replace :-)

[TominMO]

nice, so the solution was just to replace :-)

Right. I've flushed this motor twice now. It tends to be kinda sludgy, no doubt becuz the PO didn't do the oil changes when she should have. I'm gonna toss all my used HLAs and just put new ones in whenever I hear significant ticking. Assuming Sea Foam or ATF doesn't make it go away.

[Pu241]

you think a sonic bath in bio diesel would clean them up?

[TominMO]

you think a sonic bath in bio diesel would clean them up?

Maybe, but they are all pretty old, so wear may be a factor too. Eight new ones costs less than $50 from Rock Auto. Eight of my used ones came from that Aspire head we got in Taylor's JY, with ~125K miles IIRC, and the other eight are the originals in the Aspire, at about 180K miles. So what the heck, I used the new ones and all is well.

[Pu241]

More interested in whether or not they could be cleaned-up, than the cost.
Want to see what crap may have been in them and what might have dissloved/removed the crap.

Agreed new set for $50 and no worries about wear is a no-brainer.

[zoom zoom]

I used an ultrasonic cleaner and degreaser one time, they came out shiny but the tiny O-rings didn't survive on half of them.

[Pu241]

I used an ultrasonic cleaner and degreaser one time, they came out shiny but the tiny O-rings didn't survive on half of them.

Ah, now that good info, hadn't realized there was any kind of o-rings/seals.