62MUCH asks, "Is there a way to tell if I have Hydraulic or Solid Lifters w/o pulling the lifter out?"
Yes. First, if your Powerglide is known original equipment with your engine, this will be hydraulic lifters. Stick shift has mechanical lifters, Powerglide has hydraulic lifters.
An old inline six hydraulic cam has higher lift on intake and produces a little more horsepower. This is to compensate for the loss of power to a Powerglide.
Testing your lifters, mechanical versus hydraulic. Remove your valve cover. Find any rocker arm which is in a relaxed state, not up nor down, on the flat part of a cam lobe. Loosen off this rocker arm until you can move it over off the push rod, just enough to clear your push rod. Lift your push rod a quarter inch or so, then gently seat it back down into the lifter. Have to be careful to keep the rod straight, make sure you actually seat back into the lifter. You will know, cannot wiggle the rod much.
Place a piece of wood, small stick, hammer handle, whatever, on top of the push rod. If you can depress the rod a little bit, 1/8 inch or more, this is hydraulic lifters. Have to press really hard. A mechanical lifter, you cannot push a rod down.
You can do this without moving the rocker arm aside but is more difficult and harder to tell if the push rod is going down. You can try this with the rocker arm in place but pay close attention if the push rod is going down or if you are simply pressing out slop, the lash amount and oil space.
Whether mechanical or hydraulic, readjust your valve lash according to your manual, put everything back together.
There are two ways which are much easier to determine hydraulic versus mechanical lifters. Simply glue an ear to your valve cover while your engine is idling. Best to watch your hair and your other ear, along with fingers. When properly adjusted, mechanical lifters will "tick" and hydraulic lifters will make no noise; silent. When out of adjustment, mechanical lifters will "tick" louder, hydraulic lifters will "clack" loudly.
Probably safer for you to use a long screwdriver to listen. Simple place the business end of a screwdriver on your valve cover and press your ear against the rounded handle end. You will hear inside your engine just fine and will not be scalped.
Seriously, do be careful working around a running engine, those fan belts will scalp you or cut your fingers off. Either injury could prove fatal. You know what a spinning fan will do.
A second method to determine mechanical versus hydraulic requires no physical labor but requires a lot of research. You can identify whether mechanical or hydraulic by year, block casting number and certain tell-tale signs around the side lifter cover area. In general, trucks always have mechanical lifters, passenger cars (1956 - 1962) always have hydraulic whether stick shift or Powerglide. Earlier cars with a Powerglide will always have hydraulic.
A quick way to figure out a general year range is by the motor mounts. When motor mount holes are up near each front corner of an engine, this is an earlier design, typically 1957 and earlier. However, some of these blocks were made in 1958. Later model blocks only have motor mounts center each side of a block, just like a small block V-8 engine. These are generally thought of as 1959 - 1962, but there is the problem of 1958 year.
From there, you need to research on the web to develop a feel for year, casting numbers and other signs of truck versus car engine. Lot of research but information worth having at hand.
A warning is with engines this old, you really never know what you have until you start looking inside an engine. Could be a truck engine with a Powerglide attached, might be a car engine. If this is absolute that Powerglide came with your engine, all factory original, you have hydraulic lifters.
Surest bet is to test a push rod, if you can push it down a good amount, hydraulic.
Billyray
