Camshaft lifter questions

Put each lifter in a cup of oil (submerged) and push down on the plunger (use a push rod) with the lifter under the oil. That is really all that is required. The lifters will self-prime anyway so you really do not have to do anything. If you cannot push the plunger down that is good. Do not depress the plunger unless the lifter is in oil as that would force air into it.


The valve stem seals are likely fine. It would be OK to leave the valve springs alone.


The pushrods are fine. Reuse them.


It sounds like the rocker arms on the cylinder with the failed lifters may have come loose causing the failure. Did you unbolt the rocker arms from the support bar? If so, put the rocker arms back on the bar and install the entire assembly as one piece instead of bolting on the rocker arms after the bar is in place. The unit is designed to go on as an assembly. Individually assemblying the rocker arms after the bar is in place will likely strip the rocker arm bolt holes and/or break the rocker arm pivots.

Go back to the GM dealer and buy a new distributor gear for the distributor. That mates to the cam gear and you do not want to put the old used gear on a new cam. Install the new gear with a moly paste for breakin protection.

While you are at the dealer, buy a quart of GM EOS (engine oil supplement) and pour it into the crankcase in place of one quart of oil when you refill it. The EOS is heavily fortified for antiwear protection and will help the new cam break in correctly with no wear. This is important.

Use the heavy duty Delvac, Delo or Rotella oil in the crankcase. Cheap insurance against wear and the best oil for that engine.

Use the GM coolant supplement (sealer) in the coolant to prevent any coolant intrusion into the crankcase in the future.

If you are not putting a new timing chain and gear in....stop, go get one and replace the chain and gear when you reassemble. The cam gear in that engine had plastic teeth and the teeth will fatigue and fail. Even if it is fine now it will fail in the future so replace it.

Chevelle, BIG thanks for the quick reply. I was a little worried about tackling those vavle stems. I already picked up a new timing chain set, that nylon didn't look too sturdy. Hey, I also removed the rocker arms as an entire assembly, so it looks like no problems there. I know I caught that info somewhere else on here. So I decided to heed the word... and the rotella is already waiting in the garage. I knew this project was coming for a while now and had picked up the bars golden seal tubes (2). I heard somewhere on the forum that that was ok too, but I think I would still like to use the tabs instead. Looks like all I need now is that distributor gear. I called a local gm dealer, and Ibelieve the price was about $85. I noticed oreillys has a few different ones for about half of that. 1 was ac delco, borg warner, and something else I forget. Do you think those are worth it? Anyway, when I get this thing back together and running, I'm posting a couple pics. Nothing fancy, just stock, but pretty near mint except for a headliner.

Now 1 final question. Do I need to adjust the valve lash, or just bolt on entire assembly and go?

Thanks again for the help

Milk

i agree on everything but the pushrods.

by your picture they look rough, with quite a bit of material gone,
you have to remember pushrods are hollow thin-wall tubes.
i'd pick up two pushrods while your there.
better two pushrods than to pull the motor down again to replace them and whatever else if/when they break.

The 4.1 engine did not have any cam lobe issues, per se. The cam lobes and lifters have proven to be able to run virtually forever given proper lubrication. Some of them did have an issue with coolant intrusion into the crankcase which lead to the crankcase oil becoming contaminated causing cam lobe wear from lack of lubrication. So, the point is, the use of the coolant sealant pellets is not a matter of principal it is a required item in the service manual and is necessary to keep any internal coolant leaks from contaminating the engine oil. It is important to use it for a fact, not a matter of principal.


If you check with the Cadillac parts counter they will list an intake manifold gasket "reseal" kit for that engine. It is not cheap but will allow the installation of the latest gasketing technology and fasteners as used by the later generation 4.5 and 4.9 engines. It includes all the intake gaskets and fasteners so it is worth the cost.

Look at the dowels in the block that locate the cylinder heads. They should be a "solid" tubular dowel, not a split dowel. The 86 should have the solid dowels but double check to be sure. If the dowels are split on one side replace them with the solid dowels available thru GM service parts. This is important.

Have you removed the pistons/liners/etc. from the block? The liners are loose pieces that simply slide into holes in the bottom of the block and are sealed with o-rings. If the liners are upset during dissassembly/reassembly and any dirt/debris/sediment gets trapped under the flange of the liner that seats to the block it will cause head gasket problems later as the liners will not all be at the correct height. If the short block has not been dissassembled you would want to clean around the bottom of the liners carefully and make sure that they are all seated completely if there is any chance that they were disturbed.

Only use the factory compacted graphite head gasket. Others will not live in that application. If you have an aftermarket gasket make positively sure that it is a compacted graphite (expensive) gasket or get the OEM one.

Be sure and follow the head bolt torqueing specs and sequence carefully. Same for the intake manifold. It is very easy to overtorque the intake bolts if you are not carefull. They require very little torque to install, particularily if you retrofit to the later model fasteners in the re-seal kit.

Along the ends of the intake manifold use a small dab of RTV in the corners only. Too much RTV or RTV along the entire seal will cause it to squirt out when the intake is installed. Just install the end seals dry and with no extra sealant...just a tiny bit at the corners.

CRAP!!!!!!! Now I'm getting frustrated. First off, Chevelle, I think this thing is going to run smooth when I'm done because of you and the others. I'm just going to go ahead and change those valve seals.

OK. Let's see if I can list all of this. I got the right distributor gear, the gaskets are good, and the dowels are the solid ones. There definitely was a coolant leak problem with this motor. 56k and 2 of the cam lobes were completely round. Most looked almost as bad. I don't see how this car was running at all to be honest. lol The part about the coolant tabs was that I already have the bars gold seal, but I think I will still go with the tabs anyway. (Hence the "principle" statement) I think I would just trust the tabs more.

Now on to my frustration. I knew about not disturbing the liners, but the # 4 cylinder liner lifted up when I was tightening the camshaft gear bolt. I just tapped it back into place, it was flush with the others, (with a plastic mallet) and started reassembly. Let's just put it this way, the intake manifold looks nice back in place.

I guess I'll be taking her apart again to replace those liner seals. If I have to mess with 1, might as well do all. Besides, I've got the seals for them.

I didn't want to go this far, but what about the piston rings? Should I even mess with those when I have the liners out? Of course if I see anything obvious, I'll dig deeper, but if not I'd like to leave them alone. I will say that what I've seen of the inside of the liners is nice and smooth/clean.

Some other snags that have me held up anyway; when reassembling the water pump to the timing cover, 2 of the bolts that nuts screw onto pulled out. They didn't damage the hole, just the fastener broke in 2 leaving a nice little star washer that fell inside the oil pan for me to disassemble to remove. I swear the torque wrench was set to 5 lbs!!!:bomb: I don't know if I can get new bolts to replace, haven't had time to call the local gm dealer yet, if not I guess I can (A) get some off a junker to replace, or (B) just replacing the timing cover.

Oh, and another thing, I can't believe how much sludge I've cleaned out of the oil pan and the under side of the intake manifold. Should this cause me to look at anything else while i'm in there?

When any of you wake up from this yawner of a post, #1 thanks for reading, and #2 thanks for replying.

Damn my love for mid 80's caddys and 3rd gen f bodies!!
Milk


Chevelle, do you work for GM? You're starting to gouge the sh!t out of my wallet!!! LOL