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well, had the first mechanical failure on my '99 3400. Lifter started to collapse, was bleeding off after a cold soak, and sounded absolutely horrible upon startup, at least until it got itself pumped up. Sad part about these 60* motors, everything being so packed together, I couldn't distinguish which lifter was actually bad. Didn't matter much anyhow, as I planned on replacing the whole set (still haven't saved enough for the cam and tuner yet, either 
). So, I tore the whole buggar down, and tried to pinpoint it based on a loose rocker/pushrod - still didn't work, cause the valve train in these motors is so friggin tight off the go . . . so I HAD to tear down to the lifters themself. Even still, it took me about 15min of staring at the lifters to finally see which one was bad. IN. #4. The top of the lifter was recessed about .010" from the retainer clip. Barely noticeable, honestly.
Anyhow, at 180k miles of torturous abuse, it was bound to have a failure sooner or later! Luckily, all the pushrods are still legit, rockers are still tight and not comping apart - the cam lobes looked really great. I was a little peeved about the amount of carbon buildup in the motor, considering I change out the oil every 3k with Castrol 5W-30 half-synthetic blend. Also really peeved that it's only been a year since the LIM gasket dumped - so I had to replace all the gaskets again. A little more peeved that I spent $189 for 12 lifters (Sealed Power units through CarQuest) - the GM units would've run me $225 for the set. And still saving to replace the cam, get a tuner, new rockers, and now I need a whole nother LIM gasket set seeing as how I just used the one I had laying around, and I still have port work to finish up on my spare manifolds - arrgghh! Oh well, it'll all get done sooner or later, y'know?
Oh, and the weekend right before this, I was up in NJ (6 hours from where I live) - made a trip to Frackville, PA and back to NJ (about 4 hours roundtrip), and put close to 1k miles on the car. Thank god it decided to wait until back home to crap out - I woulda been SOL having to pay for another shop to fix it.
Too bad I didn't have my camera to take pics of it, kinda odd too, in that there was no debris or carbon flakes inside the lifter - she just crapped from abuse and old age.
). So, I tore the whole buggar down, and tried to pinpoint it based on a loose rocker/pushrod - still didn't work, cause the valve train in these motors is so friggin tight off the go . . . so I HAD to tear down to the lifters themself. Even still, it took me about 15min of staring at the lifters to finally see which one was bad. IN. #4. The top of the lifter was recessed about .010" from the retainer clip. Barely noticeable, honestly.Anyhow, at 180k miles of torturous abuse, it was bound to have a failure sooner or later! Luckily, all the pushrods are still legit, rockers are still tight and not comping apart - the cam lobes looked really great. I was a little peeved about the amount of carbon buildup in the motor, considering I change out the oil every 3k with Castrol 5W-30 half-synthetic blend. Also really peeved that it's only been a year since the LIM gasket dumped - so I had to replace all the gaskets again. A little more peeved that I spent $189 for 12 lifters (Sealed Power units through CarQuest) - the GM units would've run me $225 for the set. And still saving to replace the cam, get a tuner, new rockers, and now I need a whole nother LIM gasket set seeing as how I just used the one I had laying around, and I still have port work to finish up on my spare manifolds - arrgghh! Oh well, it'll all get done sooner or later, y'know?
Oh, and the weekend right before this, I was up in NJ (6 hours from where I live) - made a trip to Frackville, PA and back to NJ (about 4 hours roundtrip), and put close to 1k miles on the car. Thank god it decided to wait until back home to crap out - I woulda been SOL having to pay for another shop to fix it.
Too bad I didn't have my camera to take pics of it, kinda odd too, in that there was no debris or carbon flakes inside the lifter - she just crapped from abuse and old age.
! I'm just glad she didn't flagpole a lifter and cause more damage.
. Well, looks like you have it under control, it happens to the best of us!
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