New lifters- who makes the right ones?

J

Julian537

Member
Who makes the recommended lifters for the IH motors?

My mechanic has put 3 sets of lifters in my 345 and they will not stay pumped up. I think he is using melling, or perfect circle.

6 0r 7 of them will not stay pumped up. I drove the truck for 700 miles after I had new cam, crank, and rod bearings put in , then lifters started bleeding down again. The pulled the tranny and pulled the cam backplate to verify all the oil gallies were clear. I am getting good oil pressure too. 25 at idle and 45 on cold start up. Goes to 55-60 when the motor is revved.

Thank you.
 
Hey julian, glad you cam over to the neighborhood.

I left you a pm @ tbp.

I think your problem is the rear cam bearing or the feed to it. The same gallery that feeds the rear main bearing also feeds the rear cam bearings and,the rear cam bearing feeds the lifter gallerys. If the bearing was installed partialy blocking the feed from the main it could easily become blocked. This blockage and reduction of oil flow would give you the increased oil pressure and starve the lifter galleries. I would look at than gallery interface for the problem. The issue can be under the rear cam bearing and would not be visible untill the cam and bearing are removed.

A last idea is the oil filter bypass is open allowing unfiltered oil to be punped through the engine. The contaminaton can cause the lifters to bleed down due to the valving being held off its seating surface.


The better lifter is a johnson lifter but I doubt the lifter is your issue.
 
Using a valve cover cut in half longitudinally, mount it on one side and watch down into the lifter gallery on one side and verify it's flooding the lifter chamber and bores with oil.

As Robert said, your issue is not "the lifters" or the brand of the lifter. Though the johnson lifters are by far the preferred source. Study all the threads in this sub-forum and you will see we've hashed all this out with fact and testing!

And...a lifter can be tested easily for "leakdown". Ihc spent an inordinate number of pages and words in all service references regarding lifter service. Review the process in any IH service manual, the same section was repeated in every service manual, there is/was only one single hydraulic lifter system used in the I-4 ans sv engines, though there were two different suppliers to IH for that part.

We have determined that some iskendarian lifters (those are not manufactured by isky but are a private label deal) were below par in the quality department...in a few cases we found the actual lifter was missing internal components! That was a total anomaly and is certainly not the norm.

Memorize this thread and the attachments contained therein...those diagnostic processes will lead you to...cam bearings! Either incorrect installation (most likely), or trashy galleries. I spend about three hours on the oil gallery cleanup alone in these engines when building one, and that is after the block has been either tanked or bake and blasted. If your oil pressure readings are accurate and taken with a known good gauge, then the numbers you posted are high and out of the range of "normal". Oil pressure readings that are "higher" than the norm are not good for these motors, that is not within the design parameter. The lubrication scheme for these engines is based upon high volume/medium pressure, these are not chryfordrolets and 90% of the mechanics in independent shops today got no idea how to diagnose and deal with lubrication issues.

Most of the time, "noisy" lifters are traced to non or poorly oiling rocker assemblies, a classic example regarding a freshly built engine is described in this thread:

http://www.forums.IHPartsAmerica.com/gas-engine-tech/1016-waynes-non-oiler-392-a.html
 
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If the rocker shafts have trash in them and are blocked, will this make the lifters bleed down? I thought that the oil from the rockers went through the block and directly back into the oil pan?

This motor had new cam bearing put in and rod/crank too.
It was fine for 700 miles, then all of a sudden, the oil pressure jumped up and lifters started making noise. I have had the shop looking for the blockage this whole time. They said that they looked in the hole from the crank to the rear cam bearing and it was clear!!!
 
julian537 said:
if the rocker shafts have trash in them and are blocked, will this make the lifters bleed down? I thought that the oil from the rockers went through the block and directly back into the oil pan?
Click to expand...

You are correct, the lifters feed from the read cam bearing via the rear of the main gallery and the rockers feed from passages in the head which are fed from the #2 and #4 cam bearing.
The later won't cause lifters to fail to pump up.


julian537 said:
This motor had new cam bearing put in and rod/crank too.
It was fine for 700 miles, then all of a sudden, the oil pressure jumped up and lifters started making noise. I have had the shop looking for the blockage this whole time. They said that they looked in the hole from the crank to the rear cam bearing and it was clear!!!
Click to expand...

I know we seem to be btdh but an oil system is fairly simple. A series on passages that carry pressurized oil to critical points and areas. Under normal situations an oil system pump produces a constant volume of oil at a given rpm and with a fixed capacity of leakages like the lifters and bearings etc. The combination of the and leakage result in a constant system pressure as a given oil temp. The only way you can have an odd increase in the system pressure is to reduce the leakage of increase the pump output volume. As we know the pump volume is a fixed unchangeable volume so that leaves us with a restriction to explane the pressure increase and subsequent lifter noise. The fact that you are having lifter collapsing issues and a oil pressure increase can only point to one passage or gallery interface........ The rear cam bearing.

I know they said the passage was open but did they remove the cam and crank to see if the bearing has shifted?? If not they simply removed the exterior gallery plug. That won't allow a visual of the cam bearing oil hole alignment. I have a sv apart in my shop that I double checked last night. That is the only way to verify the obstruction or lack there of. I am not bashing the guys helping you with your engine but this is an idiosyncrasy on the
IH sv only.
Sorry if this sounds like a lecture but we really want to help get you back bindering.:yesnod:
 
I know we seem to be btdh but an oil system is fairly simple.
Click to expand...

I agree with you on this.

I know they said the passage was open but did they remove the cam and crank to see if the bearing has shifted?? If not they simply removed the exterior gallery plug. That won't allow a visual of the cam bearing oil hole alignment. I have a sv apart in my shop that I double checked last night. That is the only way to verify the obstruction or lack there of.
Click to expand...

I am not sure that they dropped the crank and verified that the oil passage was clear. At this point they are talking about refunding my money and giving me back my truck.... Unfixed.

If I get it back, can I just pull the crank and verify that the oil passage is not blocked, without taking the motor out and taking the cam out? Is that oil feed hole a straight shot (vertical) from the crank to the rear cam bearing? That is what it shows in the service manual, and I dont see any other way for it to go.

Correct me if I am wrong. If the blockage was in the oil filter houseing, we would never see the high pressure at the guage? It would be blocked before it ever hit the guage.

I agree with you that the blockage has to be in the vertical oil galley from the rear main bearing to the rear cam bearing.
 
julian537 said:
I am not sure that they dropped the crank and verified that the oil passage was clear. At this point they are talking about refunding my money and giving me back my truck.... Unfixed.

If I get it back, can I just pull the crank and verify that the oil passage is not blocked, without taking the motor out and taking the cam out? Is that oil feed hole a straight shot (vertical) from the crank to the rear cam bearing? That is what it shows in the service manual, and I dont see any other way for it to go.
Click to expand...

I would take the money and run if it were mine but I have the equipment to fix it. Do you??? I'm sure they just want it to go away.

Yes the passage between the main and the cam bearing is a straight vertical shot.

The main gallery runs the length of the block on the drivers side. The 1/8 pipe plugs on the drivers side of the block are passages that intersect the main bearing/cam feed at a 90 degree angle. If you remove the plug you will only see the intersection. You have to remove the crank and upper main bearing shell to see the vertical passage between the main and cam bearing. Unfortunately the front cover and rear seal retainer must come off to drop the crank. It can be done with the engine in the truck if you have patience.. Then the cam removal is easy and bearing/block passage alignment is easy to verify.

julian537 said:
Correct me if I am wrong. If the blockage was in the oil filter housing, we would never see the high pressure at the guage? It would be blocked before it ever hit the guage.
Click to expand...

Yes you would have low indicated oil pressure not high as the main gallery is down stream of the oil filter housing.

julian537 said:
I agree with you that the blockage has to be in the vertical oil galley from the rear main bearing to the rear cam bearing.
Click to expand...

That is my take on it. It May be a shifted rear cam bearing. Noway to tell with out a tear down. Sorry :sad:
 
I just got my truck back and it purrrs like a kitten again.
So it all boiled down to one thing again. That o-ring on the pick up tube.
The tube for whatever reason slid back and the pump sucked the o-ring right off the tube and into the oiling system. This is what caused my oil pressure to jump to 75 psi. They ended up pulling the transmission again and unscrewing the oil galley plugs that run the length of the block. They fished out the o-ring from the drivers side passage, all is well now!


Thank you for everyone's help and suggestions.
 
Don't buy isky lifters!!! Their cams are great, but their lifters aren't. I got two without guts and others that never held pressure. They were all pulled and replaced with.....the name escapes me, Mike do you remember?
 
carl wiese said:
don't buy isky lifters!!! Their cams are great, but their lifters aren't. I got two without guts and others that never held pressure. They were all pulled and replaced with.....the name escapes me, Mike do you remember?
Click to expand...

The replacement lifters (current installed set) that you are using are sourced from johnson, even though the johnson tradename did not appear on the package.

See post #3 carl!
 
julian537 said:
I just got my truck back and it purrrs like a kitten again.
So it all boiled down to one thing again. That o-ring on the pick up tube.
The tube for whatever reason slid back and the pump sucked the o-ring right off the tube and into the oiling system. This is what caused my oil pressure to jump to 75 psi. They ended up pulling the transmission again and unscrewing the oil galley plugs that run the length of the block. They fished out the o-ring from the drivers side passage, all is well now!


Thank you for everyone's help and suggestions.
Click to expand...

I'm having a hard time with this idea that the pickup "o" ring made it all the way through the oil pump and was then deposited inna oil gallery! I've been attempting to replicate this with an oil pump here and it's just not possible unless the "o" ring was pulverized into tiny chinks and chunks!

How can the pickup tube "slide back" when it's bolted solidly to the engine at it's standoff bracket??

If the "o" ring was semi-intact, then it was introduced on the outlet side of the oil pump, most likely where the pump bolts to the block. I call that an assembly error.

And if the "o" ring was indeed ground up, then pieces of it could certainly wind up blocking/restricting the cam bearing spit holes, the rocker arm feeds, etc. The smallest particles would be possibly found in the oil filter if you cut it apart for inspection if...they made it that far.
 
Michael,
I too thought it was an interesting thing. The oil filter stands in the way and anything large anough to plug the galleries and certainly an oring chunk.:idea:

had to be in a gallerie already.
 
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