Mk7. 2.4tdci. Hyd Lifters

[darren@boatfix.co.uk]

Hi. I've bought a scrap 2.4tdci [H9FD] 140hp from a breakers & am rebuilding it. It's got these stupid tiny little hydraulic lifters on the rocker rack which are full of thick black oil. I intend to clean them all out but am aware that this will render them spongy. Can anyone with experience of this confirm that they will jack themselves out when the engine is first run? Do new ones come pre 'jacked out' & if so how come they are the right length?
I have rebuilt many GM 5.0 & 5.7 V8s & always squeeze the lifters up in the vice before re-assembly & have never had any problems. A friend of mine rebuilt one & didn't do this & as a consequence the engine had no compression because the valves were held open.
Cheers!

[v8dave]

A new ladder rack is normally supplied with lifters that are coated with an anti corrosion oil film, they are not full of oil.

For the first start on the GM V8 your used to I suspect the process was much like the Rover/Buick V8 I know - you get the engine fully assembled and installed then just prior to first run you prime the oil system by turning the oil pump with an external motor ( electric drill held very firmly !! ). On the first start, even when the oil pressure come up quickly, it can take a minute or two for all the lifters to settle properly

Problem with the ford diesel is you can't spin the oil pump except by cranking the starter.
I'd try to get engine oil to all the places I can and a high quality assembly oil on the cams and followers, then on first start run a fast idle at maybe 1500-1800 rpm.
This will get lots of oil splashing around the engine and fill the oil galleries quickly, it will also help purge any air from the injection system.

[darren@boatfix.co.uk]

Good points V8 Dave. Thanks.

[Chris21r]

If you pull the glow plugs out, disconnect the fuel pump fuse, you can turn the engine on the starter to prime everything with oil before the first start.

[andypdq]

I'm amazed they work as well as they do, quality oil and regular changes is the thing, there's a very small volume to contaminate compared to the Rover or Chevy lifters. On American V8s some recommend priming the lifters by immersing them in oil and hand pump them a few times. Whatever you do, wind it over 2 turns by hand before hitting the starter.

[darren@boatfix.co.uk]

Well I've stripped apart the whole rack & removed & dismantled every hydraulic lifter. You have to use pliers protected with a rag to lever them out of the rack. There's only 2 parts that slide together & a very small spring inside. Left behind in the bottom of the recess in the casting is what turns out to be a thin disc about 10mm dia. Initially I thought it was a stamped pattern in the base I was looking at but I found out quite quickly it was a separate disc when I decided to blow the airline through the rear drilling in the rack casting & one of them shot out across the workshop & took me 2 hrs to find it!! It's quite an intricate assembly - the recesses where the lifters sit are connected by an oil drilling from one end to the other in the casting - very tiny bore sort of 3mm.
I've cleaned them all out & reassembled them with greasy coated nitrile gloves so they dont corrode. I debated whether to open the ballbearing valve with a pick when squeezing them back together to expel the air but settled on not doing this.
I can't do a lot more now in terms of rebuilding the engine because the cylinder head that was on this engine has got that common cracking between the valve seats & so is scrap.

[darren@boatfix.co.uk]

Well just as a finale to this thread, I can attest that yes the hydraulic lifters do jack themselves out very nicely. I know this because I swapped my old 2.4 with the scrapyard engine I had & which I was obliged to build up fully & install a few weeks ago. What brought it to a head was I had a heater plug glow tip break off - just the tip [carbon deposit] & it meant a head off to get it out. But I decided to bite the bullet & go the whole hog because it had done 240k & It barely passed the emissions any more. I was thinking about doing a account of the engine swap & how the engine & gearbox will come out together without dropping the subframe very much.