I read in a acticle that you don't need to soak your lifters before you install them is this true?  

I've done it both ways with no ill-effects. Couldn't hurt to do it.  In the grand scheme of things I would say better soak than sorry.  

In spite of modern writings to the contrary, I still put hydraulic lifers into a container of oil, then I take a push rod and work the plunger up and down till no more bubbles come out.

These days---- they, whom ever they are? say this "isn't necessary". But pumping up the lifers before installation gives me peace of mind, so I continue inspite of my wife, who says I don't listen to her, always telling me I'm not up with the times, or something like that.

Bogie

The old ways are the best ways brother!  I'll do it the old way when I install my new lifters!!

"They" and "the times" are not all they're cracked up to be!! The old ways are still the best ways by my standards. There's always some @sshloe out there trying to draw attention to himself by saying "do it my way" - what's it going to hurt to immerse the lifters and get them oiled up the way it's been done for a long, long time ?  *** "the times"  dude !!, what's right is right, and the rest is *** to get some fools some attention they crave when they can't come up with anything of any real substance or value!

I don't listen to my wife either - It's just keeping up with the Jones's as far as I'm concerned - The bad thing about winning the 'rat race', is after you've won, you're still "a rat"!  Other that that, I don't really feel strongly on the subject.

either way your going to prime the engine the lifters will fill up. wouldnt you just blow some air back through them soakin first?

If the rocker arm is not moving has the lifter fail or has the cam lobe flatten ?  

most likly yes because i dont think the push rod bent or broke but you can hope and if the lifter is malfunctioning it will still push at some point

If your not getting any movement it's a good bet that the lifter or lobe or both are gone.

With that cylinder at TDC firing, both valves are closed. At this point can the pushrod of the offending valve be moved up or down with your fingers?

It could be a bent pushrod, but then you need to find out why the pushrod bent. This is almost always because the valve and piston met. This happens because 1) the cam is out of time, holding the valve open when the piston came up. 2) The engine was over revved causing the valve to float and it got hit by the piston. 3) The cam has a lot of lift and the piston does not have enough clearance and they hit. 4) The heads and or block deck has been milled and the necessary valve to piston clearance has been lost, again a collision happened. 5) Long rods were put into the engine without the proper piston being used; the pistons now stick up too high and hit valves. 6) A valve stem is bent preventing the valve from closing and it got hit. 7) The valve guide is too tight and the valve sticks and it got hit.

But most likely the engine was started with insufficient or improper lube on the cam or too slow or too fast an idle or insufficient initial run in time and it took the lobe and lifter out. The Chevy small block is most sensitive to this. The cam's lobes must be coated with the proper assembly grease as recommended by the cam's manufacturer. The lifers unless rollers must be new or remachined. If using used lifters on a used cam they must go back on the lobes they originally mated with. The SBC with a flat tappet cam greatly benefits from a cam button. This idea that the slight face angle ground into the lobe is sufficient to hold the cam in place with the lifter is bogus. This puts a lot of loading on the lifter/lobe interface and when combined with high lifts and stiff springs quickly get you into trouble. So go thru the trouble of installing a button and use a water pump that has a provision for a bolt to ride against the timing cover to prevent the button contact surface from moving.

Proper break-in is to start and maintain a 2000 RPM idle continually for one half hour after start up.

Bogie

     When I pulled the valve cover off the exhaust rocker way off to the side of the valve spring. When I pulled the manifold off I could see that the push rod was bend bad. I replace all the lifters in the engine, I believe the lifters were the problem, because I heard them clattering two days before this problem happen.

     I first changed the oil and the noise stopped down but then they started up again. Then while I was drive the engine bottem out  then came right back, but it clattered bad.

     I have not finish putting the engine back together, but I will in the morning when I get off.

wow bent pushrod how old is the motor something is wrong with the set up for that to happen the rockers started clackin out of no were i bet the cam is going but the pushrod bent thats weird lets here more about your valvetrain set up

Howard, how about some details of what you’ve built here. I’m taking guesses as to why it bent a pushrod based on generally discovered problem areas. You must treat this bent pushrod as a serious problem till you work out the cause. Putting in a fresh rod and recranking if not starting the engine is a receipe for disaster.

1)      Bad pushrod that had a manufacturing or material flaw, a one of a kind random event or a generic problem in all the pushrods made by that manufacturer in that batch.

2)      Piston meeting open valve and slamming it shut, the reasons for this could be

a.       The piston has a dome or insufficient relief to provide clearance during the overlap phase of the cam. The flip side of this is the cam or change to 1.6 to 1 rocker arm has increased lift to where the piston and valve get into each other.

b.      The heads or block deck have been milled such that resultant closeness of these parts has eliminated the original clearance of the valve and piston.

c.       The valve stem is bent or there is insufficient clearance to the guide causing the valve to stick or bind slowing or preventing its return to the seat in time to miss being hit by the piston.

3)      Pushrod binding caused by several things:

a.       Increased cam lift or the use of a high ratio rocker has changed the geometry enough to where the pushrod is being bound by its guide that’s now too small to provide clearance. With the valve a max lift there should be at least .060 inch clearance between the pushrod and its guide walls as defined in the direction across a line drawn from the intake to exhaust sides of the head That’s good for heads with cast-in guides or with sheet metal guides. The same must be held for later model engines with self-guiding rockers, where the pushrod passes thru its passage hole in the head, it also needs at least .060 inch of clearance throughout the lift cycle. Also where cast head guides or sheet metal guides are used, the push-rod must be hardened and if only hardened on one end, that end must be up. Also a note about smoothness of sheet metal guides, it’s not uncommon for them to have roughness inside the guide-way from their manufacturing operation, get in there smooth any burrs but don’t go any deeper into the metal as you don’t want to cut through any surface hardening treatment. If sheetmetal guides bind it's time to replace them with a deeper grooved part rather than push a grinder thru the hard face.

4)      The rocker arm impacting or binding on other parts can cause a lot of problems.

a.       Most frequently the valve side of the rocker becomes bound up when it drives the valve spring retainer into the top end of the valve guide. At full lift there must be at least .060 inch between the bottom of the spring retainer and the top of the guide and that top is defined by whatever type of stem seal is or will be present.

b.      Another problem caused by high lift cams or high ratio rockers is the collision between the rocker’s stud slot and the stud itself. At max valve lift there needs to be .060 inch clearance between the slot and the stud as measured on the valve stem side of the slot. This is where a wire gauge is most handy as it can be passed into this gap from under the rocker. I recommend getting some .060 inch wire as it can be cut and bent into some odd shapes that are necessary for the measurements I describe here-in.

c.       A place where trouble also crops up with dimensional changes from milling, high lift cams, high ratio rockers, or even changing to a roller rocker of the same 1.5 ratio (1.7 for BBC) is pushrod length. Getting a Manley pushrod checker along with an adjustable pushrod to make these measurements is a good investment. The rocker when properly aligned on the valve stem will make contact at about 1/3 the width of the stem dia on the side toward the intake. As the valve is depressed, the contact pattern will proceed toward the exhaust side of the valve stem. At half lift the rocker should be in the middle of the stem. At full lift it should be on the opposite 1/3 mark of the valve stem towards the exhaust side. From that point it should sweep back across the middle and come to rest back on the intake side of the valve stem at 1/3 the stem diameter. Each and every valve should be checked this way. The same is said for clearance measurements, check everything. If you’re using a really big cam, that is lifts over .5 inch, I highly recommend going with lash caps. These are hardened steel caps that go on the top of the valve stem. They usually require that you order long length stem valves with more distance from the locks to the stem tip to get space for them. These devices provide more area for the rocker to contact helping to keep from the situation where the rocker, especially roller tips from falling off the valve because as the lift goes up so does the sweep distance of the rocker across the stem face. They also protect the stem face from mushrooming which is a problem with aggressive solid tappet cams as they tend to really snap the rocker onto the stem through the lash cycle. The use of stem caps apways requires longer pushrods.

5)      Spring and retainer clearance, this is problem area that always needs to be checked on a valve by valve basis.

a.       The retainer needs to be checked for clearance to the rocker. There’s a couple problems here; first, if the pushrod is too short the lever arm of the rocker will sit on the outer edge of the retainer toward the rocker side. This can bind the rocker holding the valve open a bit or worse push the retainer down far enough to unlock the locks allowing the valve to drop into the cylinder. Second, the retainer can

      become bound by the fulcrum boss of the rocker, this clearance needs to be checked for each and every valve. Again the magic number of .060 inch is a good measure of adequate clearance.

b.   The retainer can be jammed into the valve guide boss before

       the cam has reached full lift, this will either break the rocker

       arm or bend the pushrod.Again that seemingly magic

       number of .060 inch of clearance comes in. That’s about

       the minimum clearance that’s safe, more is better but not

       necessary, lets say .040 is iffy but doable if the lift isn't  

       exceeding .5 inch and the RPMs are kept under 5500.       

      As I previously stated somewhere, this measure is from the 

       bottom of the retainer to the top of whatever you’re using 

       for a stem seal, not simply from the retainer to the metal top

       of the guide.

c.       Spring clearance needs to be .050 inch between each coil at maximum lift to prevent the spring from binding. If the spring binds before max lift; either the rocker will break or the pushrod will buckle. Sometimes the stud, if pressed in, will be pulled out or if a screw in, will become bent or broken.

                       When dealing with multiple springs getting inside them to do

                        measurements can be difficult, this could mean that each

                        spring has separately and sequentially assembled and

                        measured. It’s not uncommon, especially for the engine’s 

                        top end, for the engine builder to have to assemble,

                        disassemble, and reassemble the engine 2,3 or 4 times

                        before finally closing it up.

Take notes as you go, make a chart or what ever it takes to keep an audit trail so you know what you’ve done and measured. Trust me there are car builders and chief mechanics that won’t fire a fresh engine till they’ve read such a list and even then they only trust documentation from an engine builder they know and trust. There are some really good books on the subject out there such as the “Step by Step Guide to Engine Blueprinting” from S-A Design Books, by Rick Voegelin. This is 20 bucks well spent.

Setting valves, I do not like nor do I use these quickie valve setting techniques used an abused by the Flat Raters. These almost always get you into trouble, especially if you’re running a long duration cam, or high ratio rockers. I recommend the painful practice of bringing the number one piston to TDC firing, this absolutely insures the valves are fully closed. I do this right down the firing order which means jumping back and forth, and from front to rear of the engine, but I know for absolutely for certain that no valve was sitting on a ramp when I adjusted it. On hydraulic lifters, I carefully run each rocker to zero lash, that’s just at contact on the lifter's plunger. I don’t go back until the engine is running and hot, then I reset them for zero lash hot with the recommended amount of preload being ¼ to ¾ turn more. I never turn the adjustment more than a 1/4 turn beyond where the lifter becomes quiet. It’s better to fire up with a little ticking than to have an over tightened lifter hold a valve open for a piston to hit it. For solid lifters; I go ahead and lash the rocker to the valve stem in the middle of the cam manufacturer’s recommended range. Then go back and reset when the engine is running and hot. This process requires lots of rags and keep heavy duty aluminum foil around to make baffles to catch the flying oil.

Bogie

The car sat in storeage for two and a half year. I pulled the car out of storeage in May. I changed the oil, filters, plugs, wire and adjusted the carb and timming. The car was running fine, then it started you run a little funny. So I pulled the air clearner off one morning, to find that my carb was leaking from the top gasket. I replaced the carb with a new one . Then everything was fine the car started to run like a bat out of hell.

  Then like I stated earlyer one morning when I was leaving from work I heard the lifters start to clatter. At first I thought that the car was just cold and it would go away. Once the car was warm the noise left, so I didn't pay it any attention but the lifters would clatter everytime I started the car when it was cold out side. I live in Nebraska and we have cold mornings sometimes. The lifter keep clattering so I chaged the oil thinking it was dirty again.

  After all that it brings me to my current problem. My setup includes a small crane cam rated at 2000- 6500 rpm, a performer manifold , a edebrock 1406. My ignition is made by eccel with eccel wires and I'm usins ac delco R44ts plugs. I'm only using them because thay were the only plugs I found that will not fail in one to two weeks. All this in wrapped up into a 327. The lifters I  was using were speed pro.

  When I pulled the lifters there was no movement in them at all. To see them you would have thought that they were solid lifters.  That is all that I can think of.

  Now I'm currently working on a 355, I'm just waiting on a oil pump screen and shaft then I will have the whole bottom end complete. I hope to put the heads on next weekend. I didn't plan on putting that engine in my car until spring. This why I need to fix my current problem.