Valve Lifters

[2dogsnight]

thank you Sony,
going to the boat to soak lifters with carb cleaner and wiggle them a little
.....same time building a contraption out of 4x4s, to get the motor out of the boat...in case of wiggle failure

[lat 64]

Originally Posted by ILikeRust

I would like to highlight this excellent and most helpful photo posted by Lat 64:



First, note that this photo is from the underside of the block - it looks like the block is on its side or mostly upside-down in that shot - so the lifter is being slid back into the block going "upwards" into its bore - which, IMHO, is the way to do them, rather than try to force/finagle them out up the top, which there is not enough clearance to do unless you first remove the adjusting bolt on top of the lifter.

Second - and more significantly - look closely at the bottom end of the lifter, right in between his finger and thumb. You will see a brownish band going around the lifter. That is the part of the lifter left exposed down inside the crankcase. That little band is a ring of sticky goo consisting of ancient combustion by-products and oil. THAT is what causes your lifter to stick and be difficult to pull all the way up through the bore if you're trying to pull it upwards.

When I overhauled my engine, I found that on my lifters, and I cleaned them all with mineral spirits and some fine steel wool - just enough to get them mostly clean and shiny all over again, until they slide nicely up and down, like the valves on a trumpet.

An excellent description of the image with one error; I was actually tearing the engine down at the time. Thus the goo on the lifter was still in evidence when I took the photo.
After hundreds of engine tear downs as an apprentice machinist, I got a good feel for this sort of thing. They do get stuck with the smallest grit or goo.

caeruleus, take lots of photos as you tear down.

[2dogsnight]

yup, great picture to show where the problem is.......and only one way to get there
Just did some wiggling with carb cleaner - so far dissolving paint...6 lifters in various stages of free movement - two (on far sides)are pretty stuck.
.....caeruleus must have them all out by now

[Sony2000]

The side lifters seem to be prone to receiving less oil.

[ndutton]

Originally Posted by Sony2000

The side lifters seem to be prone to receiving less oil.

Really? If that were the case, that they were actually prone to such oil starvation, you'd think we would have heard about it before now especially considering the engine is in its 8th decade of service with somewhere around 40,000 engines produced.

Can you please provide independent support for the statement?

[2dogsnight]

what is the "Seafoam"
I found brand in O'railey auto parts...but not sure what I need to use....
The closest to what I want to use for is:
Sea Foam® - Intake Cleaner & Lube
Part # SS14
???????

[Sony2000]

Yes, that is it. Cleaner and lube.

[2dogsnight]

thank you Sony!

[Sony2000]

Originally Posted by Sony2000

The side lifters seem to be prone to receiving less oil.

The side lifters seem to be prone to receiving less oil than the other lifters, in a low oil situation.
Or the side lifters are the first lifters to seize up during oil starvation.
Sample N=2

[ILikeRust]

Originally Posted by Sony2000

The side lifters seem to be prone to receiving less oil than the other lifters, in a low oil situation.

"Seem"? Are you saying this based on your own perception, or is there some empirical evidence indicating that this is, in fact, the case?

Originally Posted by Sony2000

Or the side lifters are the first lifters to seize up during oil starvation.

As compared to which other lifters? I'm totally unclear on what you're saying here.

BTW, the early version of the Atomic 4 engine had a valve chamber oiler, which was a small tube going from the oil gallery up to the valve chamber. It sprayed oil along the valve springs and stems. Universal evidently determined that this was unnecessary, as the later models did not have this feature. Instead, as Don explains in his most excellent Service and Overhaul Manual, "Late model engines rely on oil vapor and spray emanating up from the crankcase through four 3/4" holes in the base of the valve chamber (which connect directly to the crankcase)." So it would seem that the engineers at Universal had determined, after something like 20,000 engines, that the lifters and valves received sufficient oil without a direct oiler spraying them.

Another BTW - I guess I'm also a bit confused as to why the presumption that there was a low-oil situation in the first place? I don't recall seeing anything in this thread to indicate that this engine ever suffered a low-oil situation. All we know from caereleus is that this engine "had been mostly rebuilt from the journals up and is clean and shiny," that it sat in an unheated shop for about a year or so, covered with a plastic tarp, that "the block is assembled and attached to the oil pan, but the head is still off", and that caereleus "just took it out this week to start putting it all together again". From that description, it would appear to me that it had not yet been run since its rebuild. So we have nothing to suggest it was run with low oil, or anything like that.

[Ball Racing]

Whats a side lifter?????????????????

[lat 64]

Originally Posted by Ball Racing

Whats a side lifter?????????????????

I guess that would be referring to a lifter in a side-valve(flat head) engine?
Just a guess.

[ndutton]

I'm not on board with much of what has been suggested here but IF oil starvation is a problem in A-4's (?) to the point it deforms lifters (??) to the point they need to be torched red hot and beaten out of their holes (???), I propose such oil starvation will have caused far more carnage than just the lifters. They'll be the least of your problems.

Here's my latest question: What does Sample N=2 mean?

[Kelly]

Sample N=2?

Are you talking statistics here? This could be 2 samples drawn from a certain population. If your population is large, then your 2 samples are not very representative.

Am I close?

[caeruleus]

Well. I got my lifters out by removing the oil pan and dropping them through the bottom, as recommended. The two lifters on the end seemed to be the most difficult, but I was able to finally work them down and out beside the crankshaft.

Surprise! They were in perfect shape. I took a mic reading on each, and they were all within about a thousandth of each other, and straight. And they were clean, too. The problem doesn't seem to be the lifters at all, but the guides themselves. Any lifter will stick on the same problematic guides. Difficult to see down into them, but there is either some corrosion or varnish on the inside walls.

So the next step is to take a hone and lightly clean them out, and see if that doesn't fix it.

[Ball Racing]

When I rebuilt my motor, it was a rusty mess, and I did not keep the lifters in order when I put them back.
I had resurfaced them because they had pits.
They all came out fine, but for what ever the reason, half of them were to tight to go back in right ( I tried every combination of arrangment).
I took a small brake hone, and fit each lifter to the bore.

[Sony2000]

Varnish, varnish, varnish. Not all "stuck valves", are stuck valves then.
So a thorough proceedure, since the engines are getting so old, is to turn our attention to the lifter guides as well as the valve guides!
Don't forget the MMO, or you will pay for it later!

[ILikeRust]

Originally Posted by caeruleus

Well. I got my lifters out by removing the oil pan and dropping them through the bottom, as recommended.

Excellent! Congrats!

Originally Posted by caeruleus

Surprise! They were in perfect shape. I took a mic reading on each, and they were all within about a thousandth of each other, and straight.

Color me unsurprised.

Originally Posted by caeruleus

The problem doesn't seem to be the lifters at all, but the guides themselves. Any lifter will stick on the same problematic guides. Difficult to see down into them, but there is either some corrosion or varnish on the inside walls.

I used a 12-gauge shotgun cleaning kit to clean the lifter bores when I did my overhaul.

Congrats on finally getting them out! Now onward to the next step!

[ndutton]

Originally Posted by Kelly

Sample N=2?

Are you talking statistics here? This could be 2 samples drawn from a certain population. If your population is large, then your 2 samples are not very representative.

Am I close?

Thank you for the statistics lesson but as a simple boatbuilder I'm unimpressed by the reference as support for the oil starvation scenario. Caeruleus' excellent report is far more impressive and a welcomed relief from the speculation.

[caeruleus]

Thanks for the tip on the shotgun brush, Rust Lover. I had planned to use a brake hone, but the brush might work quite well... I've gotta set this all aside for a week or so, as employment beckons, sadly, toward comparatively unimportant tasks. Meantime, I'll order up the replacement gaskets and have the head tanked and checked.

Any thoughts at all on techniques for cleaning out the engine before reassembling? The crank and pistons (and sprockets) are still in place. Recommended solvents? And is coating the valve guides with Marvel before replacing them the right next step? And how about the cam bearing surfaces? Marvel? or something stiffer, like moly grease?

[Ball Racing]

I use camshaft break-in lube on the cam lobes, and lifters when I re install them.
I would also put a grease on the valve stems.

[Mark Millbauer]

I recently had the exact same lifter problem during a major rebuild. About half of the lifters had to be driven out with a punch and hammer. The problem was not the lifters or cleanliness. This motor sat in a barn for a number of years before I acquired it and proceeded to dismantle it. After discussing it with my automotive machinist friend and given three out of the four cylinder bores were significantly out of round, (Not to be confused with excessive over bore or taper which the cylinders did not display.) we settled on the theory that during the time it was sitting it must have frozen quite significantly. We successfully honed each lifter bore with a quality brake style hone and had the cylinders bored .010 over.

[lat 64]

Originally Posted by Mark Millbauer

I recently had the exact same lifter problem during a major rebuild. About half of the lifters had to be driven out with a punch and hammer. The problem was not the lifters or cleanliness. This motor sat in a barn for a number of years before I acquired it and proceeded to dismantle it. After discussing it with my automotive machinist friend and given three out of the four cylinder bores were significantly out of round, (Not to be confused with excessive over bore or taper which the cylinders did not display.) we settled on the theory that during the time it was sitting it must have frozen quite significantly. We successfully honed each lifter bore with a quality brake style hone and had the cylinders bored .010 over.

Dave Neptune would be a better source for this, but I seem to remember that as the auto industry moved into the seventies, the casting for engines in autos was put into production sometimes a bit too early. Apparently a casting should be left to season before it gets a final machining. I once took apart a brand-new pontiac long block from Mexico that was locked up from being bored and assembled right after it was cast. We just re-machined it and drilled out a few oil passages that were forgot. Yes, an engine was delivered to Mr Goodwrench without an oil passage from the main journals to the cam bearings! We just drilled it out with a long bit to finish the factory job.
I am told some of these castings will move a bit for years afterward. Could be a similar phenom with Marks experience.

old engines just get better

R.

[Mo]

Very interesting Russ...thanks. Will keep an eye out and see where that goes.

[caeruleus]

Mark - that's very interesting. How did you know the cylinders were out of round? Mine turns stiffly, but I figured it was just sitting without much oil on the walls for so long. Why would a dry engine deform from freezing?