Lifter Gallery Oiling

POPS

POPS

Member
Is there any way to tell if a 345 is getting oil from the back of the cam thru the lifter gallerys? All the rockers are receiving plenty of oil. Pressure at the guage is about 50 cold idle, about 35 hot. 7 quarts in the engine. I think I just have crappy lifters but would like to know for sure that it's oiling all the way through.. Any thoughts?
 
Unfortunately the plumbing to the lifter gallery's is buried real good. No easy to verify pressure but you can visually witness the presents of oil.

With a valve cover removed or a cut away valve cover installed start the engine and with a bright flashlight look down through the push rod opening and you can see the lifters working in there bores. You should be able to see oil flowing out from around the lifter and its bore.

May be a flat cam but I don't know your engine history. Edit-- I see from your readers rides post that you must have gone through the engine as I see a head off in one photo. Are the lifters noisy after running for 10 minutes? Were they dry and this is the first fire up for the new engine.
 
Lifters sat in hte motor for about 4 years before I yanked it to rebuild it. Cam and lifters were about two months old (no more than a couple thousand miles I'd guess). I think cam and lifters were a schnieder brand?? Soaked lifters for a couple days and pumped by hand til I could force no more bubbles out. Several didn't feel like they ever stiffened up. I ran a bore brush thru the oil passages before reassembling the motor. Washed and rinsed and re-washed everything.. Pretty sure all the passages were pristine. Seems to run real nice, idles smooth, revs up nice and smooth (tho I haven't driven it yet so no idea how it's gonna act under a load). Just lots of rattling. Deck and heads were straight so niether was cut to change the valvetrain geometry. I'm betting a new set of lifters will fix my issues. Probably shouldn't have tried to shortcut that one. Live and learn I guess. At least I have no extra expense other than lifters.. I love that lifters can be removed without taking off the intake... Thanks for your help

was there any trick in putting the rear cam retainer in place outside of gasket and bolts??
 
I'd give it some running time. No reason the old lifters should be bad. Also they have mated in to the cam and another set will not be the best for wearing.

The rear cam cover has a top and bottom and the rear cam bearing location is very important to ensure proper volume to the galleries. It needs to be centered on the rear cam journal. I have seen machine shops drive them in to deep almost every time. Now I stand there as they install them.

I also see a lot of these IH engines tick when everything is good except for being able to verify the rear bearing location.
 
Rear bearing 'looked' lined up when prepping the block. Ran rifle brush (17mm I think) thru rear main and thru rear cam bearing. Passage there had gunk in it even after the machine shop vat, but it cleaned out nice. I ran her with a chopped valve cover and with more than a little effort managed to get light into the valley. Looked like there was ample oil around the lifters (drain from the heads or pressure from lifters I'm not sure). Plenty of oil though. I've run it for about 40 minutes with no real improvement. Holds right at 20 inches of vacuum, steady and smooth.. Can sit your beer on the air cleaner and not lose it. Still rattles. Using the old rubber hose stethescope, sounds like 2, 6 & 8 are noisy on the right bank and 3 & 7 on the left. Can't really tell if its intake or exhaust. None of them look real sloppy while running.. Any merit to the idea of putting a quart of t-fluid trhu her?
 
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