How you can stop noisy lifters (and keep them that way) – Jalopnik

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Tens of years ago, when cars and truck engines used fixed lifters, a cacophoneous powertrain was to be expected. However, fixed lifters were not only phased out to reduce maintenance requirements, but also to reduce noise for vehicle owners and their passengers. And usually it worked. Unless you happen to have a third-generation Hemi, affected with the infamous “hemi tick”, that is.

For those who may not be super mechanically inclined, lifters run on the lobes of the camshaft (s) of an engine and activate the inlet and outlet valves. In a pushrod engine, the lifter pushes up on a, well, pushrod to open the valves via a lever called a rocker arm. In the cam engines above the head, the “lifters” – perhaps better correct “hydraulic eyelashes” or “CAM – followers” – directly on the valves. Hydraulic lifters are both spring -loaded and full of oil pumped, causing them to appoint themselves.

As we said before, solid lifters – which are in fact solid metal cylinders – can be noisy on their best day. But if your solid lifters are even louder than normal, the problem usually becomes silence by adjusting the valve root. In the past, such an adjustment was a regular requirement for car owners or engineers. However, owners of most modern vehicles are not that easy. Calming your noisy hydraulic lifters can be achieved with an oil change. Otherwise you are at the mercy of your car parts store of snake oil -elixers. If that fails, there may be mechanical damage that will not solve a panacea of a can.

In addition to an annoying sound, bad lifters can also lead to misfires, walk roughly and the dreaded control engine light. Before you panic and assume that one or more lifters require replacement, it is worthwhile to first try a few -self -remedies, starting with fresh engine oil. Old oil can get enormously dirty and those contaminants can connect small lifter passages. Other oil -related pitfalls are the use of the wrong viscosity oil (too thin or too thick), or the oli level can simply be low, so that a liter has to close it.

Check your owner’s manual or online to determine the correct oil discosity for your vehicle, and if your ride has more than 75,000 miles, consider buying oil formulated for vehicles with a higher mileage. Such oil has detergents and other additives that keep sludge and deposits at bay. Another option for vehicles with a quantity of mileage is to try an additive that was specifically marketed on quiet noisy lifters. A few popular “mechanic in a bottle” options include Sea sweat of zeaomasthe appropriate mentioned Liqui Moly Hydraulic Lifter AdditiveAnd Lucas Heavy Duty Oil Stabilizer.

Some mechanics of both the professional and the shadow variety also swear that adding a liter or two automatic transmission fluid to your motor oil will perform miracles to allow noisy lifters to crash. Regardless of which additive is chosen, be careful not to fill the carter of your engine with the oil/additive mixture, because too much oil can be just as harmful as too little.

If performing an oil change and possibly some additives do not clean your lifters to the point to be quiet again, it is possible that another has failed. A worn internal spring or collapsed hydraulic lifter that will not pump full oil creates play between the lifter and the related pushrod or valve, which is a bigger problem than just noisy.

Replacing lifters is not necessarily an easy job in every vehicle, but in any case overhead camming engines have access from the valve cover or the ridge valve. Old School Pushrod engines, such as Chevy’s Uber-Popular Small Block V8, require the removal of the inlet manifold to gain access to the Lifter Valley. Depending on your vehicle, replacing the lifters can easily cost $ 1,000, $ 2,000 or more.

Prior to breaking out the costs of a rental or mortgage payment on new lifters, it is certainly worth trying to clean them and spread them via fresh oil, with or without additives. However, if that miracle treatment does not work fairly quickly, will not be tempted to make your tunes a little louder and just continue with trucks. One or more damaged lifters can other components such as your camshaft (s) and even your catalyst grenades that we all know is not exactly cheap to replace.