This picture shows the piston that is fitted inside the lifter,
look to the centre, and you will see a ball bearing, this acts as a
release valve to let oil in and out of the piston.
7. Now that we have established this, you can get a pointed object,
like a small punch or similar and depress the ball, what you will
get is the oil will begin to come out, keep doing this until all
the oil has come out.
8. Having done this what you need to do now is to test to see if
the spring inside is ok, or whether its collapsed or broken, this
is done by compressing the piston. If all is ok, just clean up the
piston, making sure the sides are totally clean with no varnish or
gum.
9. We will now go onto see how we can sort out the tappet itself,
i.e. the bucket shaped part where the camshaft lobe pushes against.
Normally after several thousand miles, you will no doubt have some
wear. You will now need to linish the tops of each tappet, this can
be done by using P240 wet/dry paper using WD40 as a lubricant, put
the paper on a flat surface (a machined pieces of steel or a small
sheet of glass) and then rub the base of the follower is a circular
motion over the paper, make sure you turn the follower regularly as
you linish, keep going until there are no scuff makers present.
It should look something like this!
If you have some wear on the sides of the tappet, then very
carefully and lightly smoothen up with some 1200 or 2000 grade wet
and dry paper, but don't over do it as this need s to be a tight
fit inside the cylinder head valve bores.
10. Finally once all the lifter have been cleaned assemble the
lifters - see my steps below with pictures, and put them in a bath
of *hot* oil, the hot oil will cause any air inside to expand and
be forced out, mind you don't burn your self.. put the lifters open
side down. Then allow the oil to completely cool, the remaining air
will contract and be replaced by oil.. that will get them nearly
full, test each of the little ball valves before you put them back
together.
11. Pop each lifter (tappet) back into the head values - make sure
each one goes back to its original location.
How to put lifters back together again after taking apart to clean
out. (These pictures are of a lifter Tappet before it was cleaned properly - I know, will get the cleaned up ones upload in next update)
1. All items in bits
2. Fill the lifter (tappet) up with oil - see my choice of oil in picture..
3. Then put together the piston - three parts - you put the spring
inside the piston, I then added a little oil, and then put the centre part inside the piston to complete. I then pushed the piston together so to make sure its working properly.
4. Then time to put the piston into the lifter (tappet)
Then push the piston down - you will see oil pour out of the tappet - so be clearful its messy!!, then with a wooden hammer, I used the end of the hammer to push down on the piston in the lifter to make sure it moves up and down - be careful when doing this, you will notice oil pouring of out the lifter which means its working
Well for me the lifters (tappets) are all ready to go back into the
head once its been cleaned up and skimmed, so another job done...
and saved about 80.00 pounds instead of buying new ones
Tomorrow time to work on bottom end more...