help with 3.4L engine noise; link to sound file

[34blazer]

Yea you can clean them but it is not worth the effort. You can get a whole new set for cheep and be sure they you wont have to take the engine apart again.

The only thing I would caution against is off shore lifters. But from a reputable company.

its gettin hard to find a good set of quality flat tappet lifters anymore. most of which are imported. i think howard's still makes theirs here, but im not sure

[geoffinbc]

Gm lifters are still the real deal.

[davida1_hiwaay_net]

Yep - GM lifters are the only way to go. I chose to dismantle and clean my original ones because i'm "old school" and my mom and dad raised me to not throw away anything that still has life. The lifters were not damaged in any way, only dirty.
Roller lifters in a stock application like this do not seem to wear out. I guess the valvesprings are not strong enough to create rolling contact stress fatigue in the bearings or surface of the rollers. The dismantled lifter in that picture has 370,000 miles and looks like new after cleaning.
You're right it's time consuming and time is money. I let the pieces soak in a untrasonic cleaner while doing other engine rebuild tasks.
I had the time and motivation, and OEM roller lifters are not cheap either. (by my standards anyway) If you're a little poor as a kid, you never get over it!
A hydraulic lifter is a simple device really. If all its parts are clean and undamaged, the lifter will work. As long as the parts move freely and the check-ball and spring shown here http://68.209.87.173/89_LeSabre/lifter_3.jpg are not fouled, it will work.
One situation where old lifters can get stuck is when the valve adjsutment is disturbed after many hours of running. The inner piston of the lifter may have not ever been pushed down further than the factory adjustment allows, so a heavy varnish coating appears on the inner surfaces of the housing. When the adjustment is disturbed (after headgasket, manifold, etc work) the lifter is compressed further than it has ever been. The piston is forced into the varnished region of the housing, which sticks the piston. Like this it can no longer automatically adjust. If this happens, sometimes motor flush will fix it but usually manual disassembly and cleaning or lifter replacement is needed.
I'm so disappointed with the asian knock-off parts sold these days. I could have bought a reman CV shaft for my mom's car, but the store talked me into a new shaft for "only $1 more" than the remanufactured one. Without looking I took it. During installation, I noticed China on the box. Fit and machining on splines not nearly what the original GM shaft was. Should have got the reman unit, and the $ would have stayed here locally.
Oh well.
Hope you get your motor running quietly!
David

[IanSzgatti]

sounds like a couple skeletons f*$%king on a tin roof.

[jacktoad]

general question on the hydraulic lifters(non-rollers):


can i use cleaned/rebuilt lifters from another engine(like the 3.1L that was just replaced). or should i stay with lifters from this 3.4?

is there anything that needs to be done to the lifters prior to install other than filling with oil and coating with molylube?