Valve Lifters

[Sony2000]

2Dogsnight, the only chemicals to disolve the varnish (thanks to hanley) on the lifters is a pure decarbonizer. Thus carburetor cleaner, and possibly brake cleaner or Seafoam in a spray. MMO is not agressive enough. Did you use carburetor cleaner?

[2dogsnight]

I didn't use carb cleaner yet ......I will try today.....don't have much hope that it will do anything....needs to get down to the bottom of the lifter.....but I guess better to try it than take everything apart.....

[Sony2000]

Oh yes, do soak and rotate them. That is your only problem, varnish.
It was hard understanding lifter problems in two engines at the same time.
Attack them with carb cleaner, and finish with Seafoam spray that has an oil mix which will not drip off overnight. Repeat daily for a week, and it should work well.

[caeruleus]

Any tricks on removing the cam shaft? I've searched a bit and haven't found anything. The manual says "the shaft can carefully be slid out of its 3 bearings." She's not budging easily. Tap it out with a drift from the front side?

[caeruleus]

OK, got it. I thought the end of the cam shaft was the bearing. Now I see.

[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]

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]

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]

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]

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?

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.