[wh33lman]

What causes a lifter to not bleed down?
I pulled them all out last fall, put them back in the box and 5 of them will still not push down.
I disassembled one, emptied the oil, cleaned it, blew it out and reassembled. And it seemed ok .

[blueghoast]

Originally Posted by wh33lman

What causes a lifter to not bleed down?
I pulled them all out last fall, put them back in the box and 5 of them will still not push down.
I disassembled one, emptied the oil, cleaned it, blew it out and reassembled. And it seemed ok .

Sometimes some lifters will hold there prime when sitting.
If there is no movement at all .001-.003 then pull them apart
and check the reason.

GT

[Jack Gifford]

I once stored a Pontiac V8 for thirteen years without removing the valve springs. When I got it out of storage not a single hydraulic lifter had collapsed! It fired up without even a tick from the valvetrain. I said "Thank you Kendall GT-1".

[wh33lman]

Originally Posted by blueghoast

Sometimes some lifters will hold there prime when sitting.
If there is no movement at all .001-.003 then pull them apart
and check the reason.

GT

Crower lifter...
It was not budging at all, so I took it apart , cleaned it, but did not find anything wrong.
Reassembled and it seemed fine.
Guess I'll soak it and see what happens then.

["QUICK-SILVER"]

Originally Posted by wh33lman

Crower lifter...
It was not budging at all, .

How much pressure did you put on the plunger and for how long?

A good lifter, with cold oil in it, could take several minutes with a 100 lbs of pressure on the plunger to see any leak down.

And if the plunger resevoir is full... any leak down you get will be gone when you let the plunger back up.

Clay

[wh33lman]

I did not "lean on it" for very long...just about 15 seconds and it would not budge.
I can try a couple of others...

[Cliff R]

Clamp it up in a vise and put something in place to push on the plunger. Slowly close the vise and keep steady pressure on it. It may take up to 2 minutes to push all the oil out and fully compress the plungers.

I've tested cheap lifters that compressed in as little as 15 seconds or so but a good set of slow bleed lifters are going to take around 120 seconds.

A few years back I purchased a 2002 CVO Road King that had pretty heavy engine mods (103hp/103tq). It ran like stipped ars ape but sounded like a thrashing machine when running. I removed whatever lifters (I suspect they reused the factory Delphi's) were in it and replaced them with Hylift Johnson positive pin oiling slow bleeds. That almost completely eliminated all the "thrashing" noise that was going on with it..........