lifter pulled out of bore - lifting pushrod out of head!!!

A year ago I installed an old Clifford solid lifter cam that I bought 20+ years ago but only used for about 25K miles. The performance was no better and fuel economy was much worse (by 8 mpg) than the stock '78 smog motor cam. So I bought the special timing set from our forum host to be able to advance the cam and I had the distributor re-curved (thanks Bill). I installed the timing set last Saturday and early this morning I had a few minutes and I was going to install the rocker shaft. One of the push rods was sitting high and binding in the bore. I wiggled and twisted it a bit and lifted it up. When I lowered the push rod back into the hole in the head it dropped all the way down to the cam!

I have never had a situation where the push rod to lifter contact created such a hydraulic joint that the push rod would lift the solid lifter out of its bore. Now in damage control mode, I (rapidly) pulled the adjacent push rod out of the head to look for the missing lifter - I did it again. Now I have two lifters that are out of their bores and not visible when looking down the push rod holes in the head!! That was 2.5 hours ago and I am still mentally numb. I am so short of time and I had no intention of pulling the head until after this driving season (and only then if I was still unhappy with the Clifford cam).

Since I can not see either lifter when I look down the push rod holes in the head, I presume that I have no choice but to pull the head.

Aribert, your only hope is inserting a small telescoping magnet into the pushrod holes & fish around & see if you can attract the lifter by its top & once you have it on see if you can get it into the lifter bore. Good luck.
By the way did you ever get the camshaft degreed in properly?? Bill

If the magnet doesn't work, maybe your can pull it out with a small hose and suction, like from your mouth. Seems that a drop of motor oil on the end would help make a seal if the end is relatively square.

Bill:

Cam intake lobe centerline is advanced 4.75 deg. I then checked exhaust lobe centerline -advanced about 3.5 deg - it appears lobe separation is just under 109 deg even though the cam card lists 110 deg. Finally I checked opening and closing at .050 lift on both intake and exhaust. Intake opening is 5 deg adv. Intake closing was 4 deg adv. Exhaust opening was (from memory) about 3 deg adv and exhaust close was 2 deg adv.

At TDC, I checked the harmonic balancer notch to TDC line on the timing cover and it is spot on. Per your suggestion I also made a couple of small notches at 18 deg & 38 deg adv. to line up w/ the TDC line on the timing cover for a sense check in the future.

I figure I'll try to go fishing for 1/2 to 1 hr with a magnet to see if I can move them around. If I can get the lifters to stand up under the opening of the pushrod hole, I am certain that I can insert the pushrod into the lifter cup and lift the lifter up enough to get it to line up with the bore in the block

Ludwig:

I too had thought of a vacuum hose but I could not figure out my vacuum source - I never considered being the vac pump. I'll try your suggestion also. I'll try a couple of different size vacuum hoses. Thanks for the idea - one more "tool" at my disposal. I really have no desire to pull the head at this time.

I went back to look at the engine (car is located in my workshop garage, 10 miles from home - part of what makes it harder to work on spur of the moment) and by removing the adjacent pushrods I could see the edges of the lifters when looking into the adjacent pushrod bores in the head. The lifters fell in opposite directions so it is obvious which lifter goes into which bore.

aribert":26xey2db said:

Ludwig:
I went back to look at the engine (car is located in my workshop garage, 10 miles from home - part of what makes it harder to work on spur of the moment) and by removing the adjacent pushrods I could see the edges of the lifters when looking into the adjacent pushrod bores in the head. The lifters fell in opposite directions so it is obvious which lifter goes into which bore.

Click to expand...

I'm in the same boat, my cars are about 20-25 miles from the house. Makes it a serious time investment just to do the most minor tasks.

SUCCESS!!!!!!!

It only ate up 2.5 precious hours that I could have spent getting the A/C further along in this car. After about 45 min, I got good at flicking the lifter so that it would stand on its end from laying on its side. Although the first few tries, the push rod cup was facing down to the cam. Once I had the lifter vertical and in the correct orientation, one went in within about 5 min of fiddling. The other one just would not go into the bore and I kept knocking it over as I was trying to get it into the bore. In addition to a mini LED flashlight, my "fishing gear": http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll27 ... 9c3ac4.jpg

I am in the process of adding A/C to my Falcon. 30 years ago I snagged a bracket to mount the York compressor on the left side of the engine in front of the distributor cap. Now that I finally am getting around to adding air, I really don't want the heavy, power robbing York way up high on the engine, so I am trying to squeeze a Sanden compressor in where the generator used to reside and then fit a mini alternator in the narrow space between the strut rod structure and the oil pan. (Slow) work in progress: http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll27 ... 0b9fcd.jpg

great!