The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Collapsed 235 Hydraulic Lifters

Since I got my engine together and started about two weeks ago, I have one or two hydraulic lifters that are noisy when I start it up cold. I have taken these lifters apart several times, they look to be new but at this point, I want to replace them. What company makes good lifters that don’t cost an arm and a leg?

Any hydraulic lifters you get today are very likely to do this, Phil. I have lifters in mine which were bought from GM in 1977 or 78 (they still had inventory then), and they've done this from the start. And I still have a set I bought in 1984 (sold by Sealed Power) which I haven't used yet. I expect them to act the same way. Not that it is as cold in Texas as Upstate NY (I've been there), but still hard to avoid no matter where you are. But I'm certain others will appear with other thoughts.

This subject has been beaten to death many times. The general consensus of opinion is that good quality stovebplt hydraulic lifters just don't exist unless you're able to find "New old stock" ones from the 50's and 60's. There are a couple of tricks for creating a slight constant oil flow to keep the lifters filled while the engine is running, but that doesn't solve the problem with them collapsing when the engine stops with a few valves open. If the rattle goes away as the engine warms up and the lifters fill, it's probably best to simply live with the noise.
Jerry

Are stovebolt lifters the same for any other chev engines like the 350 ect.would be easier to fond if they were .

Nope- - - -stovebolt lifters are larger diameter and a little taller, I believe. The closest match diameter-wise is the lifter used in Ford, Chrysler, and AMC V8 engines. It would be possible to sleeve the lifter bores down a bit, and use the smaller lifters, I believe. It would probably be necessary to custom order pushrods with the proper end shapes and length from somewhere like Comp Cams if that approach was taken. The sleeves would need to be cross-drilled to allow oil from the longitudinal galleries to pressurize and fill the lifters. The sleeve procedure is one I'm considering trying if I ever build a hydraulic-lifter stovebolt engine again, but that possibility is probably somewhere in the "slim to none" category!
Jerry

My lifters did the same thing. The way I got them to stop was to adjust them with the engine running. I loosened each one until it started ticking the tightened them just until the stopped ticking and locked the down.

You guys aren’t giving much hope! LOL. I was going to replace them all but now I see no point. I think I’ll try just replacing the offending ones and see how that works out.

How old are the lifters? If they're new, or recently-installed, let me suggest a little patience. The more often they're run up to operating temperature, the shorter the time will be that they're likely to rattle before quieting down. Tinkering with the noisy ones is simply going to prolong the break-in time before they start behaving, if they're ever going to do it. There's a tech tip somewhere that describes a couple of modifications, one to the bottom of the pushrod, and another to the lifter itself, to help purge trapped air. Since stovebolt pushrods ae solid, and oil doesn't flow from the lifter to the cylinder head area through the pushrod, it's necessary to create a path for trapped air inside the lifter to be purged quickly.
Jerry

Jerry, I can’t actually say. They came with the truck and were new when the PO had the engine rebuilt by a shoddy machine shop. I have the receipts from the PO. He had nothing but problems after he had the engine rebuilt. The odometer says 00150 and I believe the PO put it in, so I don’t believe there are many miles on the lifters. Today it took almost 15 minutes before they quieted down today.

I did the tech tip on the push rods last year and it didn’t help.

Did you also do the lifter modification, where a small groove is cut into the pushrod seat to relieve trapped air in lifters that don't have a hole in the center of the seat? OEM lifters had a tiny vent hole in the middle of the pushrod seat. Since you have a lathe, another approach might be to chuck the pushrod seat into an adapter of some type, and use a very small solid carbide drill bit to make a vent hole in the center of the seat.

Edit:- - - - -It sounds like a solid lifter cam might be somewhere in your future! Adjusting valves a couple of times a year really isn't that much of a hassle, and when they're adjusted properly, solids are virtually silent.
Jerry

I thought about the solids, but after just putting in my newly rebuilt engine, I squelched that idea. With her running fairly well, I want to be able to take her to an event or two after working on her for the past two years. I’ll live with the issue if a replacement lifter or two doesn’t solve the issue, at least for awhile!

just swap to solids. thats what i did. sure she clicks and clacks but man it runs incredibly good

Jerry, I think my lifters do have the hole, the picture shows the push rod seat in the inverted position and shows a hole but I don’t know if it goes thru.

Ok- - - - -the part we're concerned with is the pushrod seat at the far right of your photo- - - -and I can't see the top of it. Lifters that oil the top end with hollow pushrods have a tiny hole that bleeds a little oil through the lifter and in the process, purges trapped air. If the hole isn't there on yours, I'd suggest obtaining a very small solid carbide drill bit, maybe 1/32" or so, and drill the hole, using some type of home-brewed fixture for the lathe to hold the pushrod seat in a 3-jaw chuck, and drilling with a tailstock-mounted Jacobs chuck. I have a 1/4" capacity chuck mounted on a 3/8" straight shank that I use for tiny drill bits, that I hold in a bigger chuck with a #2 Morse taper in the tailstock. That's how I make custom-size carburetor jets when I'm tinkering with mixtures. It would also be possible to mount a Dremel tool chuck that way.
Jerry

Jerry, Question... What would cause only one or two lifters to loose their prime and not the others?

Poor quality control during manufacturing. If a lifter is machined with just a tiny bit too much clearance between the parts, it will collapse when the engine is shut down with a valve open due to the tension of the valve spring bottoming out the plunger of the lifter, which then takes a long time to refill. If I take the plunger of a properly-machined lifter out and hold it in my hand for a couple of minutes, it will expand enough due to body heat that it won't go back into the hole it came out of. The proper sliding fit between those pieces is around .0001"-.0002". That's a strand of hair split into 5 to 10 equal slices.
Jerry

We’re in the line are the lifters that are giving you grief.Was just thinking if it would make a difference if you had a motor with the oil supply to the head via tube under the side cover or newer with the passage drilled in the head

Lifters are oiled by a BIG gallery drilled from the front to the back of the block, 1/2" or larger in diameter. Rocker arm oiling has nothing to do with the oil supply to the lifters.
Jerry

Ok learned something so that gallery that goes from front to back would be were the oil line goes from with the copper line up to the head on some of the 235 engines.

And to hark back to Phil's original comment the operative word is "cold." From what I've seen, it doesn't take much to let the lifters collapse. When the entire engine is 70 or 80 degrees things are different than when the entire engine is 20 or 30 degrees. And there is also the question of what oil? If you're using 10w30, when cold the viscosity is 10 weight. There is a difference between 10 and 30.

The rocker arms get oiled in three different ways, depending on the size and type of the engine. Spray-oilers like the 216's and early 235's have a copper line that passes through the water jacket from the oil distributor on the driver's side of the block. Early full-pressure 235's have a line under the pushrod cover from the rear cam bearing area to the rocker shaft connector, and later 235's eliminated the line under the cover and oil the rockers with a drilled oil passage through the block and into the head at the middle. The rocker shaft oil connectors are also different for early and late engines, depending on the oil pressure source.
Jerry

And if you had a 1959 or newer 235 block which was to be used with an older style head, there is one specially drilled head bolt to reduce oil flow to the rockers. It has a hole drilled in the center from the end of threads and another which joins into that hole just past the threads.

Here is some information on that drilled head both - from Pre68 Dave.

So as I read this, it would make no difference where the lifters that are loosing prime are located in the block. Closer to or farther from the oil galley should make no difference as the lifter design controls it's drain back and loss of prime. I follow the oil viscosity line of thinking, just trying to understand why this loss of prime only effects a couple of lifters.

Location within the lineup should make very little to no difference. Especially if the oil pump is new or was checked at time of rebuild.

Why only a couple? Because those were machined with greater (internal parts) tolerances than the others. That extra tolerance and a cold engine (and probably a break-in oil or multi-viscosity oil) combine to make those collapse enough to make noise until the engine is warmed up and at that point 1. tolerances in the lifters internal parts change 2. the oil viscosity changes 3. those two changes make the lifters act they should again. If the lifters were really out of whack (meaning the tolerances were much too large...and this would still be very small numbers we'd be talking about), then those lifters would allow constant valve clattering no matter whether the engine was cold or warmed up and no matter what viscosity oil was used.

Hydraulic lifters do not simply fill once, and stay that way. The size of the oil galleries that connect all the lifter bores from front to rear and the volume of oil from the pump needed to keep them full tells me that lifters use a lot of oil even when they're operating normally. At a cruise RPM of 2000, each lifter is cycling its valve open and closed 1,000 times a minute, or almost 17 times a second. While the cam lobe is lifting the valve, the oil trapped in the lifter body under the plunger acts like a solid lifter, since liquids can't be compressed. In the process of doing the lifting, a tiny volume of oil is lost due to the clearances built into the lifter plunger and the outer body. As the valve returns to its seat and the tension on the lifter is at a minimum, the pressure of the oil pump refills whatever oil has been lost during each lift of the valve. That's why getting the right preload on the lifter is so important- - - -When it is at its lowest point of travel, the bits and pieces of the lifter must align correctly for the refill to happen reliably.

Trying to adjust a lifter successfully with the engine running has two possibilities- - - - -slim and none! It's a terribly inaccurate adjustment method at the very best.
Jerry

I know that what we get as after market parts will never be as good a the original OEM machined years ago. I was following this as I've had the same issue with a late model LS engine, 2 sets of lifters later and it finally calmed down. Oil viscosity didn't seem to change much in my situation, though todays engines require a lot lighter oil than say a 235.

If I were Phil I might want to find a decent set of used lifter and use those internals in the new bodies he has. With some trial and error and a good caliper he may be able to find a good fit and not worry to much about the wear pattern of the old lifter against a new cam. Just a thought.

Calipers? Not likely. Maybe a micrometer that reads accurately to the 4th. decimal place, or possibly an optical comparator. The finish on lifter components is also important, similar to what's needed on Diesel fuel injector parts - - - -so smooth that high pressure fuel doesn't leak past mating surfaces of high-polished steel without any gaskets or seals involved.
Jerry

I think that is well beyond my capability’s. LOL

There is some great info being contributed to this post, and I thank you all for your input. Now to answer some of the questions:

• I’m using 10w-40 Lucas Hot Rod & Classic Car oil. I just changed it from 10w-30 Royal Purple break in oil which I changed after the first 50 miles.
• The truck is in a garage and the current temperature is about 40 degrees inside.
• The engine is a ‘59, the head is a ‘60 and it has the correct rockers with the offset oil groove and the pressurized rocker shaft.

I haven’t put many miles on the truck since the rebuild (maybe 60]. I’m going to let this issue go at least until the spring and I put a few miles on her. As Jerry has pointed out, they more than likely need to be broken in and maybe the’ll fix themselves. LOL. It’s getting too cold for pleasure runs especially since I have no heat. I may get one or two more in but that’s being hopeful.

In the meantime, I’ll be on the lookout for NOS lifters.

I'd suggest you put some mileage on the engine before you start doing anything else to it. Other than being annoying, a noisy lifter isn't going to do any real damage. I'd much rather have a few valves a little loose than have them tightened up enough to cause a miss, or maybe burn a valve becvause it can't seat fully and ends up getting overheated.
Jerry