Lifters go tap tap tap.

[Draff]

Hi Guys,

Have a quick question about hydraulic lifters, about a year ago now I rebuilt the head on my scorp, vales, crowcams double springs, stem seals, had it shaved ect. ect. and installed a new set of lifters while I was doing the work also.

Ever since installing the new lifters they still make the ever common tapping noise and it makes me think I must have done something wrong when putting them in.

This was my first shot at rebuilding a head so I would not be surprised if I have missed some curial step, but any help or guidance would be appreciated.
I've got some pictures up on flicr with the top cover off so you can get a bit of an idea of what I was working on.




Cheers

Draff

[astronturbo77]

hi mate ive had experiences in this area, firstly are you running the ts magna roller rocker, roller cam setup? when i rebuilt my head i went with the roller rockers, but i also had the roller cam reground to a different profile, beause of this i didnt have enough preload on the lifters(hydraulic valve lash adjusters) and they were obviously going to be noisy, so to overcome this i installed some bigger valves with longer valve stems to get the correct preload on the lifters. so what im saying is maybe because u have a crow cam you may not have enough preload on the lifters?

another idea is if you use the rocker gear of a early astorn 1 engine that has adjustable tappets, they bolt staright onto you head and that should fix the problem, but remember u cant do this if you have a roller cam.

[Draff]

Sorry I should clarify, I replaced the valve springs with new double valve springs (brand crow cam), but odds are you still could be right.
I'm not 100% sure of the origin of the head that’s on the car now, the motor has been swapped twice since I've had it and the current one I have came out of another wrecked scorp but was not that cars original as well so it could well be a “bitsa” motor.
If I had to take a punt my guess would be it’s out of a Pajero (astron2) originally but I did see a post in another thread about engine serials and how to tell what they are from the stamp so let me see if I can figure that one out for you.

Odds are you right none the less about the cam, who ever had the motor before me could have very well swapped it at some stage coursing a pre-load issue.
I’m currently considering building a new motor and aiming to go fuel injection if I do so I’m not fussed about the lifter issue at the moment as ill be pulling the head down again, then but it would be nice if I can sort this one out so I don’t make the same mistake again

[Paddles]

i just rebuild my triton motor from ground up, its is a series 2 2.6 with hydraulic lifters, i ran the motor in with some 15/40, and lifters where making some tapping noises, put the original thickness oil in that i run after the run in period, 20/50 and it runs like a dream now with no noises. so moral of the story, what thickness oil are you running???

Paddles

[Draff]

hmmm interesting.

Im currently useing Penrite HPR30 and that's SAE 20W-60 i have not had much joy with it so far, do you think its worth aiming for something a bit thinner and see if i have any luck?, oil is always changed every 5000-7000k as well so i keep it fairly clean, the batch in there at the moment might be 2k old.

[Paddles]

could be worth a shot but i was suggesting using a thicker oil, if you go thinner you might be noiser. not to sure, is there much difference between 20-50 o 20-60?? i get confused with oil thickness.

[Sigmaproject]

The motor looks like an Astron ll from a GN. Head is probably an M1 with stock Hydraulic lifters.

I was told to use Penrite HPR 15 in my Subaru to cure a noisy lifter, and so far it has worked like a dream.

If you have mixed and matched components, you could have an oil feed issue. The rocker shafts are different between left and right, and so are the oil feed holes to the shafts.

If you can get hold of an undisturbed rocker shaft assembly from an early Magna I would put your new lifters into it and give it a try.

A friend of mine had a TR Magna with over 300000klm on the motor, and it never had lifter noise at all.

[Draff]

I just had a quick look sorry for not getting back to you guys sooner,

The head has markings of “13” on the exhorts ports but nothing else.
Checked the serial on the block looks link a standard astron2 and it’s out of an 86 according to the conversion guide here.

http://www.sigma-galant.com/viewtopic.p ... ial#p12388

Anyone know much about this 13 on the head and its origin?
I had acquired a set of extractors from a GN GSR in a wrecking yard but the ports are to small.

Also to I guess the next question I have is, what are the odds who ever had this motor before me swapped the head form something else and what options do I have with magna heads that would be plug and play (meaning no oil porting issues ect) due to my ambitions of going EFI(sure this question has been asked to death so feel free to drop me a link from another form if there is one around and ill read up )

[Sigmaproject]

The head look like an M! with the small water port between 3 & 4 on the inlet side.

Your EFI gear will bolt straight up, but you will need to shift the thermostat to the front because of the water port size

Or just take to the small port with a grinder They must have been cast blank and machined to the appropriate size later.

The leaded GN Sigma's used an M1 head, same as the first Magna head was M1. Only difference being the rear water ports

[panda]

I recently replaced all the hydraulic lifters in my M6 head as several had stuck. But it still rattled, turned out that 2 of my brand new ones were faulty.
Moral of story - new ones may still be faulty, don't assume there OK.

[Draff]

The head look like an M! with the small water port between 3 & 4 on the inlet side.

Your EFI gear will bolt straight up, but you will need to shift the thermostat to the front because of the water port size

Or just take to the small port with a grinder They must have been cast blank and machined to the appropriate size later.

The leaded GN Sigma's used an M1 head, same as the first Magna head was M1. Only difference being the rear water ports

Fantastic, thanks sigmaproject i might start hunting around for a magna some time in the near future to pilfer some parts off.

Very good point of the lifters as well Panda, just because they are new doesn't mean that cant be faulty i didn't think of that i think its only 1 or 2 lifters tops that could be questionable in the motor at the moment so that would make seance.

Thanks for your input guys really appreciated, odds are ill have a look at the head when i start hunting around for EFI gear.

[BAD-SIG]

I just changed my Astron II 2.6 (originally from an 87 GN Sigma) from stock hydraulic cam and tappets to roller rockers and Waggot cam. The engine is brand new and was smooth quiet, but now with the sporty cam and roller rockers from a TR Magna with 297,000 kms (all cleaned up and inspected though), it's really really noisy. I ran the engine and drove the car around the block a few times for 20 minutes or so and the engine did go slightly quieter, but the tappets are still very noisy. I'll try removing the cam again tomorrow and maybe fit the hydraulic lifter adjusters from the original (quiet) valvetrain and see how we go. I suppose I can always go back to stock but who wants to do that right!

[Draff]

Interesting to see some one pulled this thread up years later, In hindsight its not such a bad thing :-)

Pretty much what happened with my build sometime down the track is it turned out i had a bad lifter in the new batch i installed, its possible at the time i may have damaged this while installing it but i think i may have just been unlucky and acquired a noisy one, after i located it and replaced the trouble maker, the lifters being hydraulic they were clearly still never perfect but they operated at a level i found them to be acceptable/quiet.

I found keeping the oil as clean as possible & always letting the motor warm up first before driving really helped the lifter sound levels as well (kind of goes with out saying).For example when i had completed the head work on this build i also took off the sump, oil pick up, pump etc. etc. etc. and completely cleaned everything (some times with a tooth brush to get everything to a "shiny" level haha) to make sure i had a nice clean baseline to work with and then i use to make sure i dropped the oil every 6 months or every 5k.

These days the car lives in a shed at home in storage and has in effect been mothballed due to currently living away from home, in the end i was really happy with that motor. Sometimes it really pays to send the extra time to get things right in this area, and being prepared to go back and rework things if your not 100% happy with it later (this may have been coursed by my skill level at the time) may be time consuming but its really really worth wile.

:-)