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Wildthings
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 15, 2022 9:16 am    Post subject: Re: Bleeding And Cleaning Hydraulic Lifters Reply with quote

tencentlife wrote:
Following up on the "pump-up" phenomenon discussed all those years ago. As I've said, the internal fluid pressures are simply nowhere near enough to actually overcome even very light valve-spring pressure. But there is a situation where this might seem to be what's going on. In cases of valve float (valves not closing completely at high rpms because the springs aren't strong enough to control valvetrain inertia) or sticking dirty valvestems at lower rpm, there can be slack in the valvetrain at times when it should be fully loaded. At those times a lifter may expand into the available lash, making the lifter effectively too long so it holds the valve off the seat at rest.


I purchased a '78 Bay with hydraulic lifters and AMC heads. The keepers, retainers, and valve stems had all worn to where there was not longer sufficient spring pressure on several valves and as a result the lifters would over pump when the engine was run for 10 minutes or more. This was a dozen+ years ago, but from memory the lifters would over pump either at speed or at idle. I am sure I added some kind of lubricant to the fuel (likely a synthetic motor oil) to lube the valve stems without seeing any improvement in lifter function.
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 15, 2022 8:43 am    Post subject: Re: Bleeding And Cleaning Hydraulic Lifters Reply with quote

Dave, it looks like I have the same lifters that you were able to clean up and prefill. How did you take apart the plunger?
Greg
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tencentlife
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 06, 2020 12:19 pm    Post subject: Re: Bleeding And Cleaning Hydraulic Lifters Reply with quote

Following up on the "pump-up" phenomenon discussed all those years ago. As I've said, the internal fluid pressures are simply nowhere near enough to actually overcome even very light valve-spring pressure. But there is a situation where this might seem to be what's going on. In cases of valve float (valves not closing completely at high rpms because the springs aren't strong enough to control valvetrain inertia) or sticking dirty valvestems at lower rpm, there can be slack in the valvetrain at times when it should be fully loaded. At those times a lifter may expand into the available lash, making the lifter effectively too long so it holds the valve off the seat at rest.

My own experience is that wbx's are quite prone to intake valve sticking, and it's mainly from use of fuels that don't have a good detergent additive package. Lots of other engines are probably similarly prone, we just don't see the problems that used to be common because major fuel vendors have all had good additive packs for a long time now.

But you can still find cheap gas out there, and it's prevalent in some other countries and markets. I had several engine customers that had valve sticking problems while traveling thru Latin America, where fuel quality is spotty. I advised them to add some ATF to their fuel and in every case that cleared it up.

Valve float probably isn't much of a factor for wbx drivers and most other engines that have rev-limiters in their ECU's, and in my experience I haven't seen valve springs losing strength with age.

In either case, the over-filled lifter should self-correct in a few engine cycles, but a chronically sticking valve would present the same problem again and again.
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 16, 2017 1:46 pm    Post subject: Re: Bleeding And Cleaning Hydraulic Lifters Reply with quote

this is an old thread but with great info and photos.. two things to add as i'm doing this.

i tried cleaning them in acetone, mineral spirits, lacquer thinner, and couldn't get the black spooge off of the check ball. 10 minutes in an ultrasonic cleaner with hot Pine Sol did the trick. cleaned everything up very nicely.

then hooked up a bleeding system that seems to work extremely well... vacuum pump to a jar of oil. while sucking the air out, it also seems to be boiling off the WD40 i used to assemble these. don't know if that is an advantage for when the engine gets hot or if the WD would just boil and get pushed out. whatever, the vacuum bleeding seems to work very well.


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 10, 2016 7:30 am    Post subject: Re: Bleeding And Cleaning Hydraulic Lifters Reply with quote

hi, I believe I'm having similar problems, dirty lifters or failure altogether, engine hadn't been run in long time.
I removed the cylinder head with poor compression (#4), fixed valve guide, put it back together, new oil, plugs, and had the engine running smooth for two weeks drove down street a couple times. then started experiencing what I believe to be a "lifter knock". thought It could be related to one of them not pumping up maybe due to dirty oil clogging up oil channels somewhere. ran marvel mystery through the engine with very thin oil, revved it for twenty minutes, lifter seemed to pump up gradually. engine runs smooth again! for two weeks until I have the same problem again. I'm going to check the oil, more cleaner...etc.

Maybe a visual inspection of lifters are necessary after I try cleaning It out again , do the lifters just slide out with a magnet of some sort when I remove the rocker arms, rods...etc?? or is splitting the case necessary?

also if my lifter has failed should I worry about damage to the camshaft, or any other parts?

any advice on diagnosing pretty loud lifter noise/possible failure?
thanks everyone
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 01, 2015 12:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm off to clean some lifters. Thanks everybody for your processes and photos. You have once again put forth a lot of effort sharing the knowledge. I hope these tickers I have are repairable? It is a fair amount of labor. New lifters are silly expensive. I'll put forth some labor. Is there a vender or a brand that is recommended and reasonable? What is the average cost per lifter that you folks have come across?
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 05, 2015 3:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I just disassembled my lifters to clean and preload with oil.

108,000 original miles.

Mine (brand unknown but I can only assume OEM originals) were built differently from the ones posted earlier in this thread.

The top that the pushrod sets into was a permanently assembled side feeding cap.
The interior piston and a spring loaded ball bearing as the bottom check valve.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Assembly was not unlike others, I used a small 7/32 drill bit to hold the piston compressed while assembling the top and retainer clip.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


I found that by using two small screw drivers I was able to compress the piston easily, one small enough to depress the ball bearing check valve, the other to use pushing down at the same time. You Can't just push the ball to compress the piston..... You knock off the ball retainer and spring!

I found that mine were sticky with a heavy build up of oil deposits.
I Used common carb cleaner which quickly cleaned off the deposits in short order.

I filled the lifters with oil from my trigger oil squirt can about 1/2 way.
Dropped in the bottom spring.
Slipped in the assembled piston /check valve.
Depressed ball and pushed down piston.
Slipped drill bit into hole on top of piston.
Slipped on the top and pushed down excess oil oozes out lifter side hole when the drill bit is inserted.
Install clip.
Done!

Do One at a time, don't risk mixing up parts.
Does it matter? I don't know ....... but why risk it?

Dave
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 30, 2014 2:38 pm    Post subject: Creatively lazy lifter hack method Reply with quote

Thanks to all for all the information on this topic. I always read Schimke and tencent's posts and learn alot. And Schimke's T3 lugs for my 16" mercedes wheels are definitely stylin. End of platitudes and on to the meat of the matter: I'm nearing the end of a rebuild of my 2.1l, which threw a rod in central Baja California awhile ago. I'm now finally rebuilding it at a friend's house where we had it towed after a huge 3rd world adventure getting it and our sea kayaks out of Mexico. I don't have the benefit of my shop full of tricks and tools here where I'm doing this. I got new lifters from VC, and was fiddling around with how to bleed them properly without fancy stuff, fiddling with the drift pin method and so on, I had an epiphany that requires no "lining up the holes" and no sliding small metal scribes or drifts into the aligned holes. Being basically creative (which is my technical term for "Lazy") I took the foot off a 5" C-clamp that had a ball at the end of the screw which was just a bit bigger than a vanagon rod. I ground down the sides of this ball a bit so I could get needlenose pliers in to put the final top clip on the lifter, filled the oil into the tappet, put all the other stuff on in its proper order, then slowly (maybe about 1 turn per 30 seconds), I pressed the little lifter piston into place with the modified C clamp, and put the clip on while the C clamp was holding it all at just the right depth. I think it's a viable method in place of using the scribe method or a hydraulic press. It worked great. After about the sixth valve, I seem to be able to do a lifter bleed in about 3 minutes per lifter. Anybody see any reason this would screw up a lifter or the profit margin of someone who charges to do waterboxer lifter bleeds?
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 11:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here's a picture of the body of a FEBI lifter I got from VC (I'm assuming it's a FEBI because that's what they have listed).

One difference from loogy's pic is the retainer clip. It's flat rather than cylindrical. It also has holes as you can see,
but let me tell you, I had a much easier time removing them carefully with a pick than with my ring pliers. It's just
difficult getting the tips of the pliers into the holes deep enough to hold.

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PostPosted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 1:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wildthings wrote:

No worry that the push rods weren't the correct ones. I don't think you could put an other wise stock engine together with the wrong push rods. The aluminium ones are something like 3/8" longer than the steel so they just plain would not fit.


Good, thanks for that intel. I used to build the Type4's a lot years ago but wouldn't touch an aircooled today, so I don't have the pushrods to compare. Good to know that they're so different in length.
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 9:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

tencentlife wrote:
Wondering if you had the right pushrods in that AC engine. Pushrod composition is key with hydros. If you had aluminum ones in there I would expect the hydros to have a tough time managing the expansion.

But it's true that something is going on, sometimes. Despite that I agree that on the whole they're less trouble than solids. I love having a boxer that I don't have to service all the time. Owning several AC's over the years, and working on hundreds of them, I don't care if I never have to lay under the back and do a valve adjustment ever again, especially just to have to do it again in 3k miles or whatever; the shine wore off that BS about 25 years ago.


As someone who really likes Bays and would like to see them kept running as long as possible, not just mine but other people's, I would like to get the valve thing figured out totally. We have so many bays sitting around here just growing moss because people can't afford the time and money to get and keep them going. My guess would be that two out of three Bays in the pacific northwest are not road worthy at any given time, and are just sitting out back sheltering the squirrels. A typical bus sits for a few years and finally the wife complains about the hulk out back so it gets sold, the new owner puts a grand or two in and then after two weeks or two months the heads let go and its back into the brush for another two years in a new location. Having hydraulics lifters that worked correctly would get and keep a lot of these buses on the road. Not having to pay someone to crawl under the bus every 3000 miles (or 7,000 or 20,000) to have them adjusted (likely incorrectly) would be a major plus with keeping them running.

Manual adjustment just doesn't work for most people, on any vehicle. I remember tearing into a big 700cid Continental engine one time that was not putting out its requisite horsepower. The valves ended up being something like .040 too loose. Its inconceivable how anyone could be that far off, but bad valve adjustments happens over and over.

No worry that the push rods weren't the correct ones. I don't think you could put an other wise stock engine together with the wrong push rods. The aluminium ones are something like 3/8" longer than the steel so they just plain would not fit.
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 8:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Could be, I dunno. I would have to have a set of the older valve springs to measure and compare. Like I said, I haven't looked at what happens with less spring pressure, but I can definitely say they don't mind more.

Wondering if you had the right pushrods in that AC engine. Pushrod composition is key with hydros. If you had aluminum ones in there I would expect the hydros to have a tough time managing the expansion.

But it's true that something is going on, sometimes. Despite that I agree that on the whole they're less trouble than solids. I love having a boxer that I don't have to service all the time. Owning several AC's over the years, and working on hundreds of them, I don't care if I never have to lay under the back and do a valve adjustment ever again, especially just to have to do it again in 3k miles or whatever; the shine wore off that BS about 25 years ago.
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 7:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

tencentlife wrote:

I don't know what earlier valve spring pressures were, but even with the dual springs wbx seat pressure is only 100#, not very high. I expected more when I first measured them, given the dual springs, but I think the duals are there for harmonic dampening due to the higher expected rev range than earlier AC boxers had. That's a very common reason to use dual springs anyway.

Air holding a valve open would be to me unimaginable. Seat pressure is 100#, multiplied by 1.1 means 110# pushing on the lifter. Even though that's not a very high seat pressure as these things go, with the very small bearing area within the lifter, much less than one square inch, whatever air might be inside a lifter would be compressed easily to irrelevance. When air is still inside the opposite occurs; you don't get maximum cam lift, and the lifter fails to track the lobe (which is the clattering we're so familiar with). So I don't think it's air.



I puzzled over lifters for a long time, wondering what caused the symptoms that people describe having. I agree that air trapped in a lifter seems unlikely once the lifter has been run for hours, but something does cause problems so what is it? I also question the 2 turns is wrong explanation that so many people harp. My personal experience for a long while with hydraulics for very good. I have never had a problem on WBXer engines and friends that have had air cooled Vanagons have run hundreds of thousands of largely trouble free miles, getting far better service than the owner of a solid lifter engine would hope for. Quite a few years ago now I rebuilt the engine in my 411 and used hydraulics and have had zero problems, my machinist though was very adamant we find the correct valve springs to match with the hydraulics. He has decades of experience so I don't question his knowledge here.

I even bought (to part out) a one owner '79 Bay with 350,000 documented miles before it had finally died from head problems. To me hydraulics just seemed to have a very good track record, far far better than solids. Then when I sent my '77 Bay off to college with my kids I bought a '78 for myself. It took some minor work to get it going, points, vacuum leaks, etc. It then ran very good, until it got hot at least. Once warm the valves weren't closing, and the compression disappeared. I went through the normal check of the adjustment, I tried 2 turns, I tried 1 turn, I tried 1/2 turn. I took all the lifters out and cleaned them, no dice, they still over pumped. The only way I could get this engine to run with the valves closing all the way was to set them with some lash. It took about .004" of lash cold to still have some lash when hot and thus prevent pumping.

Not wanting to run the engine this way, I kept looking and trying to learn. One of the valves on #2 was the worst so I looked carefully there and noticed that the keepers and retainer were failing and had reduced the spring pressure on that valve. At this point I pulled the heads, fairly new AMC ones, and sent them in. Sure enough all the valve springs had too little tension. I know this is only one incidence, but I think it is representative of a larger problem with using hydraulic valves on T4 engines. If my machinist is correct in that VW spec'd stronger valves for use with hydraulics then VW must have put them there for a reason, and that reason could well have been to force out a tiny amount of extra oil each time the valve cycled.
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 11:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Got a picture of the outer body of the llfter?

The plate is a metering disc to restrict oil flow up the pushrod. Doesn't matter which way it goes in.
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 11:05 pm    Post subject: Anatomy of the Febi Lifter, part two Reply with quote

Curiosity, and suggestion, got the better of me and I'm glad it did.

My assumption on spring orientation was wrong.

I took a few of the lifters apart. The valve housing pulls off quite easily with a pick.

First shot is an exploded view, like loogy's, but one step further. I took out the contents of the valve housing.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


You can see the spring and the disc. Notice the spring orientation.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Here's a close up of the disc and the spring. I took four apart to ensure the spring orientation was consistent. Some notes.

The large spring does *seem* to have a tighter side that snuggles up to the disc/spring housing. The housing flares out where it fits on the plunger, and the spring diameter is tight so it holds it in place. It's just a pressure fitting. Whether the tightness is intentional or not I cannot say, it just seemed that one side was snugger. The spring, however, looks symmetrical to the eye.

The small plate (second from the right of the exploded view), seems to just be thrown in there randomly. The way the channels are, I doubt it matters, though I'm putting them back together with the inner most ring raised side facing up.

Rich
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 4:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wildthings wrote:
To add a note to what 10c said, lifters can over pump. I do not know if it is air or oil but it can and does happen. But for it to happen something else has to be wrong as well, specifically the valve spring tension needs to be at spec. If the spring pressure is too low the lifters may over expand. When VW went to the hydraulic lifters on the later T4 in the buses and early Vanagons they increased valve spring tension.

If you have old fatigued valve springs, or are getting recession of the valves and/or the seats you may no longer have sufficient pressure against the lifter for it to operate properly. Partial failure of the cheap keepers and retainers used on AMC heads may first manifest itself with lifters that over pump and hold the valves open.


I don't know what earlier valve spring pressures were, but even with the dual springs wbx seat pressure is only 100#, not very high. I expected more when I first measured them, given the dual springs, but I think the duals are there for harmonic dampening due to the higher expected rev range than earlier AC boxers had. That's a very common reason to use dual springs anyway.

Air holding a valve open would be to me unimaginable. Seat pressure is 100#, multiplied by 1.1 means 110# pushing on the lifter. Even though that's not a very high seat pressure as these things go, with the very small bearing area within the lifter, much less than one square inch, whatever air might be inside a lifter would be compressed easily to irrelevance. When air is still inside the opposite occurs; you don't get maximum cam lift, and the lifter fails to track the lobe (which is the clattering we're so familiar with). So I don't think it's air.

As far as oil-binding, I can only imagine one scenario where the engine expands, the lifter extends as it should to take up the lash, then when the engine contracts again that lifter fails to bleed off the extra oil. That is the only occurrence I can imagine where a lifter could end up holding a valve off its seat due to being "overpumped", and it would only leak at the valve while the engine was still cool. Once the engine expanded again that lifter's size would be matched to the engine's again and the valve should seat, assuming nothing else changed in the interim.

Hydros used in other engines do have occasional mechanical binding, where the internal plunger gets physically jammed in the bore in an extended position. Given that the construction of the ones we use is pretty much identical to those others, I suppose that may be the most likely cause of a lifter holding a valve open. I would think the lifter would need to be pretty severely worn, physically, before that could happen, although with the close tolerances very small particles could cause physical jamming of the plunger.

I actually don't think they're terribly sensitive to spring pressure, either. I've run 1.25 ratio rockers on and off the same engines, which would mean pressure is 1.25/1.1 or 13% higher when seated, and the lifters don't care either way, they work well and adjust quickly to changes. I've even added shims under those springs which would have increased seated pressure at the lifter by over 20%, and still no irregularities in how a healthy set behaves. If there were seat recession and/or loosening keepers that allowed the spring to extend further than the designed height, the dimensional changes would be tiny, and the change in spring pressure I measure from a 1 or 2mm lengthening is insignificant, only a few pounds. Now, that would mean less pressure, not more. Someday I'd like to run without the inner springs to test that theory, but I can say for sure that they're at least not very sensitive to higher pressure..

There's definitely something funny that happens with them at times, though, but I have yet to nail down exactly what causes it. It's common enough that I almost always see irregularities in comp tests on engines that leak test tight. Test the same engine later and the lower-comp cylinders may even move around. Pretty strange. But in spite of these little annoyances I still prefer the quiet and maintenance-free operation that hydros provide.
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 3:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Of the several types I've been into, the main spring is symmetrical. The retaining cup for the small spring and ball just pops into place and stays there on its own. Can't say Ive seen one with a disc instead of a ball yet, but I haven't seen them all, that's for sure.

If you aren't sure, take apart one of your other ones!
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 1:04 pm    Post subject: spring orientation Reply with quote

Nice write up.

Would you say that the large spring that holds the plunger up is symmetric? The reason I ask is that I had one of the valve assemblies pop off while putting too much pressure on the valve to sink the plunger. I was able to put it all back on and it seems snug. The spring seems to seat over the flange of the housing that holds the valve spring and disc.

Have you looked inside that valve assembly? My Febi lifters weren't like the lifters with the ball in Bentley. It was a disc/spring combo. Same effect.

When it came apart the little spring turned sideways while taking it out, so I didn't know which way it was originally in there, but could make an educated guess. I reassembled in the housing like so

-- disc
\/ small spring

(spring is the type that coils inward and could compress flat)

Thanks again.

Everything seems ok, but there on the bench, not running at 3000 RPMs
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 5:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you for the additional information. It's nice to have so much collective insight in one place, you know?
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 30, 2008 3:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

To add a note to what 10c said, lifters can over pump. I do not know if it is air or oil but it can and does happen. But for it to happen something else has to be wrong as well, specifically the valve spring tension needs to be at spec. If the spring pressure is too low the lifters may over expand. When VW went to the hydraulic lifters on the later T4 in the buses and early Vanagons they increased valve spring tension.

If you have old fatigued valve springs, or are getting recession of the valves and/or the seats you may no longer have sufficient pressure against the lifter for it to operate properly. Partial failure of the cheap keepers and retainers used on AMC heads may first manifest itself with lifters that over pump and hold the valves open.
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