I added enough oil to the engine to cover the oil pump intake – up to a bit over the add mark. Once again I used my drill to prime the filter and pump and get oil up to the rockers.
Oil came out of a number of the push rods and down onto the rocker arms.
Some of the rockers remained dry even though I could see oil coming out of the lifters.
I pulled a lifter from one of the dry rockers and found that the plunger inside the lifter was frozen in place.
I immersed the lifter in reducer to see if I could loosen the buildup of varnish. No real luck there. So I heated the lifter with a heat gun and used a large bolt extractor to twist and wiggle the inner plunger free. I then put all the parts in parts solvent and blew them dry. Reassembly with a little oil worked fine
This particular lifter wasn’t pretty. Deep pits and worn concave. The lifter edge is riding on the cam. It should have enough miles left to serve my purpose. I coated the lifter face with STP which should stick and give lubrication until the engine gets oil pressure.
I decided to do all the lifters. Turns out they were all stuck to some degree. Some separate with just the tapered bolt and vice grips – I ground off the bolt a bit so it fits inside the inner plunger and pull it out on an angle. Most come out this way and some need to be heated to get them out. On reassembly I sand the inner plunger to remove the varnish and then a bit on the inside of the lifter to be sure they are moving freely. A cleaning, re-assembly, and a good dab of STP on the lifter face and they’re ready to go back in the engine.
I’m wondering now if the miss in the Chevy is simply a badly stuck lifter. A 3/4 turn on a stuck lifter would likely cause the valve to stay open a bit even when closed. I will be interesting to see if that is the issue.
Next: Putting on a new intake, carb and linkage