NOS Melling lifter question

J

jaskispyder

Member
I have a lifter that ticks on startup and I thought I would change them out. The johnson hylifts are on backorder and I was wondering about nos melling lifters. Any opinion on those or how about clevite brand?
 
First check and see if your existing lifters are cupped. If so you'll likely need a cam too. Every IH I've owned has had lifter noise on startup, even my newly rebuilt 345 with a comp 252 cam and comp lifters.

So how long does this lifter tick? 30 seconds I'd say is normal, 5mi down the road and still ticking is a problem.

Before changing lifters how does it look under the oil cap. Lots of black sludge or clean? Sometimes flushing the crankcase will clean up a slow lifter. I had a 345 in a travelette that would occasionally tick for a long time after startup. After a good hard session of towing a loaded trailer up a couple of mountains it never ticked again. I think the issue here was a sticky exhaust valve and the hard run burned some carbon off the valve stem.
 
fdchappie said:
So how long does this lifter tick? 30 seconds I'd say is normal, 5mi down the road and still ticking is a problem.

Before changing lifters how does it look under the oil cap. Lots of black sludge or clean? Sometimes flushing the crankcase will clean up a slow lifter. I had a 345 in a travelette that would occasionally tick for a long time after startup. After a good hard session of towing a loaded trailer up a couple of mountains it never ticked again. I think the issue here was a sticky exhaust valve and the hard run burned some carbon off the valve stem.
Click to expand...

Ticking lasts 30 seconds.. And it seems to be just one lifter, based on timing.

I pulled the heads to replace headgaskets and engine was pretty clean. Oil is clean. Running 15w-40 oil. Noticable tick when cold (starting in morning).. 40f. Goes way when warm.
 
Sounds about normal. I wouldn't sweat it. But again pull a lifter and see if it's cupped. If so try cleaning the lifters and don't change the holes they went in as it will hose what's left of the cam.
 
One more thought, I've found that the o ring that seals the oil pickup tube to the oil pump can get hard and shrink. This allows air into the oil and increases the time it takes to build oil pressure after a cold start. It's easy to drop the pan and replace this o ring. Always good to check for spun cam bearing pieces in the bottom of the pan too.
 
Good idea. I will be pulling the pan to replace the gasket, this winter. I will pull the pump and change out that o-ring.

Btw, I ordered the last set of hylift johnson lifters, instead of the nos mellings. Cost more, but I don't want to do this again.
 
I saw this post when you wrote it originally but forgot about it.
So you replaced steel with composition gaskets? If so the lifters are ever so slightly less compressed. That is not a problem by the way so long as they still have preload on them.

Start up tick will come and go depending on which valves are open after the engine stops. The fact that they do quiet down tells me that they still have preload on them but because the lifter plunger is up in the bore a bit further it could be in a little varnish. That will wear away with some miles. A work cam and lifter that still delivers satisfactory performance and no other operational disorder can last for 50k miles if maintained properly.

Your plan to swap in new lifters will certainly create a bad situation for your cam and whole engine for that matter. Only if a cam is flat and not worn(perfectly flat) can running new lifters on an old cam be considered.
A worn lobe is round and with a new lifter, will ride on only a pinpoint. That will create huge surface loads at the contact point, and surely self destruct in short order.

Stay away from trying to make the engine quieter by installing new lifters. That approach seldom ever works well in the long or short run.
 
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