Noob lifter question

[Lionel Hutz]

I bought some 3g lifters last year and am about to install them now. About half of them I can easily compress with my fingers and the other half are completely stiff. What the hell?

 

[project_tsi]

Some are most likely a little stiff or frozen up.

Are they used or new?

Either way, take a paper clip or something similar and bleed them down acording to the vfaq if you can. I then lube them in oil and install them. Upon startup, pull your MPI fuse and crank the engine over a few times for 10 seconds each. This will crank the car over without spark or fuel, and prime the oiling system. Reinsert the fuse and start the car.

 

[Lionel Hutz]

They are brand new. After I do the paper clip thing they are all easy to compress. Is that normal?

 

[project_tsi]

Yes that is what is supposed to happen. By using a paper clip, your bleeding the lifters of any compressed fluid inside. They may have had some fluid inside when you bought them, I don't know. You never want to install fully extended lifters in the car, as that could lead to piston to valve contact.

Another way to bleed the lifters is to install them, the rockers, cams, etc, and just let the car sit for 3 to 4 hours. With the pressure's the lifters will naturally bleed back down.

 

[timloomis]

Yes that's normal.They're supposed to move real easy once you collapse them.

 

[Lionel Hutz]

Thanks guys.

I have another question. Does the entire lifter move up and down in the recess it sits in, or does just the top part move? I'm putting shims underneath my lifters for some reground cams and the shims are very tight inside where they sit.

 

[Ravenous]

It will rotate a little, but the complete unit does not move up and down, just the center section which supplies the "lift"

 

[GVR4592]

Make sure when you use the paperclip you are actually depressing the plunger inside of the lifter. You will feel it depress if you are doing it right, and a lot of oil should come out of the tip. If you can't feel it move up and down then paperclip isn't lined up correctly. This is a very messy job make sure you wear some gloves when you are pumping them submerged in oil.

http://vfaq.com/mods/lifters.html

 

[Caithness]

Here's a related question- what if you can pump up a lifter with oil, then bleed it down without depressing the bleed valve with a paperclip? When I cleaned my lifters 3 or 4 of them could be bled down easily just by pressing on them, while the rest would be rock hard until I pressed the valve. Is this normal or a sign of worn-out lifters?

 

[Ravenous]

I am by no means a guru, however I am fairly certain that after you depress the plunger and release the oil it should be easy to push... when it contains oil it is hard to push, thus the term "hydraulic" lifter.

 

[Caithness]

I finally found the right search term in a random lifter thread, and now I believe they might be collapsed lifters, lifters you can easily push down by hand even with oil in them. None of the many threads using this term were very clear on what the ramifications were, but I'm going to buy a set of revised lifters just to be sure.