Topic: Lifter Replacement and Lucas Engine Treatment

[bjohn8758]

94 YJ with the 2.5 in it.

Have a mild knock, ONLY at idle- above 1100-1200 it goes away. Oil pressure (new sender BTW) shows 35-45 psi at 1000, 65 at 2500-3500.

Crappy part about this is it happened after adding Lucas with my last oil change (10w-30).

Tried running ATF through it (drained 1/2 qt oil and added the ATF) but it didn't seem to help.

Anyway, ordered lifters and will replace all 8 tomorrow. My question(s) are these:

Will a magnetic retrieval tool pull the lifters out of the bore, our do I specifically need "Special Tool xxxx" to get them out?

Any recommendation for top end lube while I'm at it?

Has anyone else had the same experience with Lucas Engine Treatment? I feel I wasted $11 for no reason....either that or it actually busted up some sludge or something that either caused a blockage in a pushrod or lifter passage........

[sharpxmen]

which treatment was it? - they have something like 50 products. If it's the one for improving viscosity then you should not do that, unless your engine is making some loud noises - your best bet is to use synthetic and replace it regularly, don't add any additives as the new synthetic motor oils have everything. I personally use Mobil 1 but most of them are very good. Your oil pressure seems perfect, from what i recall it is supposed to be between 25 to 40 at idle and up to 70 or so tops in higher RPM. I would suggest to replace the oil first and see if the lifter noise goes away but you already ordered them. I have a noisy lifter too, comes and goes - i will follow your thread and see how it goes as i will probably have to do the same thing myself - oh, and let me know if you could take them out with the magnetic tool rather than getting the specialized tool. Good luck

[bjohn8758]

Lesson learned about additives....only reason I used it was because at 124k miles, I figured it might help protect on startup.

It was Lucas Heavy Duty Oil Stabilizer "Eliminates Dry Starts"

I changed the oil as soon as I heard the "rolling marbles in a can" sound with Castrol GTX 20w-50 as it's pretty hot here in Southern Colorado right now.

The ATF trick didn't do anything either.

It'll be too bad if something happened besides a stuck lifter- the motor use / leaks no oil, and other the a lack of power out of the 4 angry squirrels, it's been a fun ride.

On a side note, I'm also going to check the cat when I do the lifters.....I installed a 62mm TB and spacer about 3000 miles ago, and it doesn't seem to be able to breathe very well......it won't be the first cat I've rodded out if it is plugged.


I'll post about the mag tool and the whole lifter change experience as soon as I see if it works....took the tool in with me when I picked up the lifters to test the strength of it, and it seemed to be grabby enough.

Thanks for the reply...

[sharpxmen]

replace the cat, you can get one for $50 or so, it's not worth the risk - i had to drill a hole in mine to be able to get home - it got completely plugged within 10 miles, start losing power and then all of a sudden i could not reach more than 10mph - no kidding. Luckily i found a hardware store nearby and bought a hammer and a chisel and punch a hole in front of it - pretty noisy but i got home ok. Oh, i use 10w-30 synthetic, 20w it is a bit thick for my liking, try synthetic and see how it sounds - they're different compared to the mineral oils, they're not affected by the temperature that much and you can do oil changes at more miles than with the regular oils (so kinda pays itself off).

[bjohn8758]

The risk of....what? There's no emissions test where I live, and being 15 years old I doubt I'd ever sell it.

Are you saying it might be detrimental to the motor?

I thought about what you said though, and if it is plugged, I'll rod it, run it , and if it shows a MAJOR improvement, I'll put a hi flow cat on it.....

We're "enjoying" highs in the upper 90's low 100's- that was my reasoning for the 20w-50.....

Thanks again for the input.....

[jfrabat]

the w part for the oil means "winter"; the advantages of a 10w vs a 20w have very little effect on a 90* day....

[sharpxmen]

the w part for the oil means "winter";

damn and i used this all summer 

The risk of....what? There's no emissions test where I live, and being 15 years old I doubt I'd ever sell it.

I was just saying not to wait like i did until it breaks down inside and gets plugged - i didn't get much warning. I was literally crawling and made a promise to replace next time before it gets there given that it is not expensive at all.

[jfrabat]

damn and i used this all summer 

What 20W-40 means is that at winter temps, the viscosity of the oil is like that of a SAE 20 oil, but at working temp the viscosity is like that of a SAE 40 oil.

[jdarg]

On the lifters, as long as they aren't sludged or carboned into the lifter bores they will come right out with the mag tool. I was able to get them out of my 120K motor like that w/ no issues at all but it saw regular oil changes and was very clean inside. Worst case use a hook tool of some sort to pull em out if they give you trouble.

Putting them in is a bit of a pain until you get the first couple in since you gotta get em at just the right angle and its a real tight fit but the rest after the first two will go real quick once you get the hang of it. If you can't get em in at first just keep trying and you will eventually do it. A helper w/ a flash light shining down there helps a lot too.

[bjohn8758]

Well, apart and back together in less than 3 hours.....

Mag tool worked great getting them out, but I had to use an old pushrod to hold the new lifter in the bore when reinstalling. Otherwise the mag kept lifting them back out.

What I found...

#4 intake was collapsed, and harder than the rest to remove. There was slight scuffing present, more on this one than all the rest. Nothing you could feel, but it was there.

Bottom faces were smooth and not concave...yayyyyyy...no need to replace cam.

No plugged pushrods- but I replaced them anyway.

Drained and refilled with 20w-50 again (new filter as well)

Now for the scary part.....on startup, it sounded absolutely HORRIBLE!!!!! This in spite of the fact that I used Clevite's own assembly lube, had soaked the new lifters in oil for an hour, and had actually put the new oil in through the valve cover-less head (down all the lifter bores, prior to installing the valve cover). I figured I'd get oil down all the bores this way.

As I said, it really sounded bad, like I had forgotten to tighten down the rocker arms, so I shut it off after about 10 seconds. Started again after going in the house and changing my underwear  l let it run for about a minute this time, and it quieted down. Test drove for about 15 miles, let it idle in the driveway and low and behold.....my marbles in a can sound is gone.


Amen to that!!!

[bjohn8758]

Oh, forgot to mention after the fact performance.....no more pedal to the floor to keep it at 65 going up hills it used to bog real bad on. In fact, on the flats, I actually saw 85 for the first time since I bought it. Wasn't paying attention to speed too much as the thing could only muster 70-75 tops going down hill.......I guess that with the intake on #4 being collapsed, cylinder 4 was going along for the ride all this time.

That being said, I did not pull and rod the cat...(besides, my whole exhaust is welded from where the down pipe hits the cat all the way back to the butt end of the muffler, and I really didn't feel in a sawzall mood today......

Thanks for the input everyone, and I hope this helps someone else as well.

[sharpxmen]

great - that motivates me to do it as well -were'd you get the pushrods and lifters and for how much?

[jfrabat]

One (stupid) question; when you say lifters, is it the same as the tappets?

[sharpxmen]

that would be correct. where are you from btw if you don't mind me asking?

[bjohn8758]

Got the lifters and valve cover gasket at NAPA.... 4.49 per for the lifters and I believe around 10 bucks for the gasket.

The pushrods were from a buddy of mine who happened to have them laying around (still in package) from a rebuild gone south (his block ended up being cracked and he just replaced the whole motor.

I don't know who you were asking where are you from.... jfrabat or me.....I'm from Canon City....