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Smashed solid lifters

3K views 7 replies 4 participants last post by  garryt 
#1 · (Edited)
Apologies for the cross-post, I posted about this in the mk1 forum but it's more of a technical engine issue so I'm bringing it here.

I took the head off because of water/oil mixing. Assumed head gasket but who knows.

I do know the valve stem seals are bad as well and I want to fix that while im in here so the springs etc are going to have to come out.

Here's the discovery:

Two of the 8 lifters are badly damaged. All of them are showing fractures areound the skirt and in some cases longitudinally up closer to the crown.

There are gouges in the aluminum of the head by the base of several of the springs - looks like the lifters have been smashing into it.

Cam is an unknown make, 272 duration and 0.412 lift. Spring are supposedly HD but previous owner didn’t provide documentation.

What would cause this? Weak springs? I hit red line once in a while but I've been doing that since purchase several years ago. This problem is new and developed since May when I opened 'er up to replace valves.

At that time it got new valves, guides, seats cut and stem seals and a valve shim adjustment.

I did not find any foreign debris in there when cleaning it this week - so it wasn't a rogue washer or anything.

Any ideas? i'm going to replace the lifters, obviously, but don't want this to happen again.
 
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#3 ·
I bet you have a Mexican cast head. The amount of casting material and the texture does not look like a quality German casting. I just ported a Mexican cast head and the amount of pores in the aluminum was more than any German head I have ported.

The heads are made for factory stuff, including the cam lift. Just because they make a high lift came does not mean it will fit a stock head. Many people install them and expect them to go with a good valve adjustment. I have had to trim the head so the cam lobes do not hit the edge of the lifter bores. Never in a hydraulic head, but certainly a solid head. I have never trimmed seat spring areas but I have never looked either. All the solid lifter heads I worked on were German.

With that much casting, I would try to trim down the head so the lifters do not hit anymore. You could also trim down the lifters, but I think that would be more of a pain. Making certain there is no burrs after grinding down the lifters and polishing the edge to prevent a sharp edge is more work that I would want to do. Plus if for whatever reason, you will have to modify a new lifter if you had to do one in the future.

So it is not that difficult to figure out what is the cause. The cure is not that difficult either. Finding the tools to grind down the casting may be difficult but some long shaft tools that are designed to cut aluminum should do the trick.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Update.

In the interest of getting my “daily” driver back, I’m moving forward.

Will definitely look in the oil pan before starting the car back up.

I ended up getting a whole bunch more lifters from rockauto, then using a digital scale and calipers to find a matching set.

Using eight of the heavier casting, which don’t feel as nice - but they all match plus/minus 0.1g and have the same dimensions so I call it good enough for this old engine.

I’ve got 6 left over that are lighter and seem better quality (German made?), plus two a few grams heavier. I’ll only get 4.50 a piece back from rockauto if I return them, and don’t want to bother listing on eBay for 15$ or whatever they go for there. I guess it’s onto the parts shelf.

Honestly the random crap I see on eBay isn’t any more consistent than what I got from RA - mismatched sets, incomplete info, etc. and three times the price. If I did it again I would order 20 from the rock and pick the best ones.

Used a mini die grinder to remove the impact craters next to the valve seats. I caved to temptation and trimmed some of the shrouding around the valve seats in the combustion chamber and knocked off some of the casting marks in the intake and exhaust runners while I had the dentists drill in my hand.


There are a few scratches inside the valve guides - some kind of grit was in there when I removed them- but I’m not sure there is anything I can do about that.

The valve seats, which got cut and lapped a year ago, look okay except for two valves that had a little “crescent moon” going on, sort of a thinning of the line where the valve sat on one side. I’m not sure if I should lap the valves a little while I’m here or just let it ride.

Also some pitting on one of the seats that wasn’t there a year ago.

I


I’m leaning towards giving them a light lapping to ease my mind - I did them by hand last time so I don’t think I will make them worse....

This poor head is becoming the victim of my education. Will probably never be perfect but I’d love to drive it for a few more years while I build another one, lol.

Thanks for the tips and feedback guys - watching the projects on vortex keeps me going when common sense tells me to sell this bunny for scrap :D





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