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  #1  
Old 09-26-2012, 03:28 PM
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Clacking head? Hydraulic lifters? MUST READ

OM60x hydraulic lifter "reset" procedure | Mercedes-Benz Club of America

Quote:
Learned something new. Over the past year and a half, I've replaced the head on my '87 wagon (300TD). Old original head, #14 casting, cracked and started mixing coolant in the oil. "While I was there" I also replaced all the chain guides and installed a new front crank seal. Ended up replacing the injection pump o-ring between pump and block as well.

I found a suitable replacement head, #20 casting, and had the valve guides replaced by a local shop, and new valve guide seals installed. I used an updated cam shaft that came with the head, and the best looking hydraulic lifters taken from the original head and the new head. Installed the head this spring, and upon the first start there was a terrible knocking noise from the head. RATS!!!

Very dejected, I let it sit until a couple weekends ago.

Rotated the engine by hand several times, and all felt normal. I removed the intake manifold, and started the engine again. Same knock, but with the intake manifold removed I could see that the #2 intake valve was the culprit. It was not sealing, but it was allowing the compression charge to escape. Sounded like a terrible knock, but no metal was touching metal, a GOOD thing!!

A key noise that I could not diagnose at first: while cranking the engine it made a wheezing sound for one cylinder. That wheeze turned into a knock once the engine was running.

Called the shop that rebuilt the head to get their advice. First test was remove the keepers and spring, and verify that the valve was not sticking in the guide. It was not. Next call to the shop, they recommended that I bleed down all the hydraulic lifters to "reset" them to zero lift.

Here's how I did it: Hold the valve with the little oil feed hole down, insert thumb(s) into the bottom, and work the element in-out while watching the oil drip out. Once you have no more oil dripping out, the hydraulic lifter is "reset". Install with confidence.

The shop recommended using a vice to squeeze the oil out. Put the lifter under pressure, let the oil drip out, then more pressure, more drip, repeat until no more dripping. I tried a big clamp, but that method did not work for me. Maybe if I had a big shop vice, that would work, but I found the manual pumping method to work just fine.

Once I had bled down that lifter and the rest, and put it all back together, she ran like a champ.

Moral of the story: If you re-use an old lifter, and it is not going back into exactly the same hole _OR_ if any valve work is done by a shop and the valve stem height may have changed, reset the lifter. In a case like mine, where all the valves were touched and a mix of lifters from two different heads was used, best course of action would be to reset all the lifters prior to installation.


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Old 09-26-2012, 03:58 PM
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Isnt that standard practice for all hydraulic lifters, I had a vw diesel in which anytime they were removed, I bled them down installed them and let them pump up. Otherwise the valves would kiss the pistons.
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Old 09-26-2012, 05:37 PM
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What you do, and what the guy did before, are two different things! Also the FSM does not mention this procedure that I can find.
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Old 09-26-2012, 07:39 PM
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This person's thumb can exert more force than a 603 valve spring???

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Old 09-26-2012, 09:29 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sixto View Post
This person's thumb can exert more force than a 603 valve spring???
Yeeaaaah.

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  #6  
Old 09-26-2012, 09:45 PM
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Uh...


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Old 09-26-2012, 09:47 PM
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Uh...


Agree 110%.

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Old 09-26-2012, 09:57 PM
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hmm - hahaaha - it does sound real funny when the post says to press those plungers with your thumb, That must be one mighty strong hand.

I had to use a big vise.
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Old 09-27-2012, 09:07 AM
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There's no need to press the plungers. An indicator of an old/worn/failing lifter is when you can press the plunger in. New ones are rock hard and DO NOT need to be pressed in or cycled to get oil out. At. All.

Something else changed which fixed the problem... twiddling the lifters did nothing but exercise his thumb.

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Old 09-27-2012, 12:17 PM
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I suspect what he quoted was his real experience. So in a drill press test situation if one will not pump up or bleed down it is seized or the internal spring is broken or the internal check valve is open or the piston bore fit is history. Hence the terms collapsed,,stuck or sticking lifter if the piston is not mobile. Plus just pretty disfunctional if completly collapsed or unable to hold oil from escaping at all. Another choice perhaps is the piston went higher when it pumped up and got stuck on the normally unused area of the bore in the last application probably on existing varnish.

His working them resulted in getting the piston mobile. Might have even been rust from sitting too long or varnish as I mentioned.. The bottom line is what he describes is quite possible in my mind.

Anytime you have an engine down that far testing the lifters with a drill press takes little time. Put the lifter in a bath of oil and use the down pressure of the drill press to see how they pump up and respond in comparison to each other.

Remember that he observed the number two cylinders valve remaining open. In my mind this was just a stuck lifter piston. The piston was stuck in the position of its last application. If the past requirement for the lifter had seized the piston lower in the bore the lifter may have just created excessive valve lash noise.. His spin was the lifters used where not from the same bores orperhaps even engine. What he encountered could not occur had they been from them. The lifter piston would never be that high in the bore.

My own experience with lifters is limited. The only ones I took apart where my extra large ones in my 1950 buick as some where stuck or sticking from twenty five years of the engine sitting. Got them all functioning well. Those particular lifters where expensive devils to buy replacements for.

Last edited by barry123400; 09-27-2012 at 12:37 PM.
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Old 09-27-2012, 12:59 PM
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I understand what he described, but IMO the root cause was not the lifter internals. I'm not sure it's even possible for a "frozen" lifter internal mechanism to prevent a valve from closing. Something else was going on that prevented the valve from seating.

MB states to keep lifters in the same bore only to keep wear patterns even, i.e. same lifter on same cam lobe.

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Old 09-27-2012, 01:10 PM
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On VWs I've worked on I was always advised to put the lifters in a cup of oil to "prefill" them.

Wouldn't the action of opening the valve make the lifter bleed down?

-J
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  #13  
Old 09-27-2012, 03:18 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gsxr View Post
I understand what he described, but IMO the root cause was not the lifter internals. I'm not sure it's even possible for a "frozen" lifter internal mechanism to prevent a valve from closing. Something else was going on that prevented the valve from seating.

MB states to keep lifters in the same bore only to keep wear patterns even, i.e. same lifter on same cam lobe.

If the internal piston in the replacement lifter was stuck higher than normally required in its new home. That is higher than the top extension in operation of a certain valves normal lifter. The valve would not totally close.. The distractor here is the lifter was not only a used one it was from a different location that required the usable normal internal lifter piston position to be much higher in the hydralic lifter than in the place it was installed in.

If it had been the original lifter with a stuck piston the valve would have closed and the worse senario if any would have been some lifter noise because of the additional valve lash resulting. Clear as mud? I find this difficult to describe. I feel it is probably accurate all the same.
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  #14  
Old 09-27-2012, 06:10 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gsxr View Post
There's no need to press the plungers.
Whats the purpose on the galleys into the lifter piston?
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  #15  
Old 09-27-2012, 07:13 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by winmutt View Post
Whats the purpose on the galleys into the lifter piston?
To provide pressurized oil into the lifter, to "pump up" the internal chamber and make the little button stick out. With restricted oil flow to the lifter (or with worn out lifters), the little button will squish in when it's not supposed to, causing the ubiquitous OM60x lifter tick.


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