Hello all my name is:Gaz
I’m doing some work on the cylinder head on my 1992 GTO and have removed the cam lifters, followers. Some are solid and some are spring loaded. What should they be?
Thanks in advance.
They are springy when new out of the box. As the system is pressurised, any gap will be taken up and it will become solid for that part of the shaft and springy for the rest.
I hope that I have explained it right. Remember that you must put each lifter back in the correct place as it has adjusted itself for that gap. Putting them back in the wrong place may give you problems unless you re-set them.
I did a video on the lifters that may be worth a watch.
Hi Joe. I have seen your video which is very helpful as all your videos are. What has confused me is I have seen other videos that suggest you prime the follower with oil before you fit them. After can belt failure I have been left with 16 bent valves, 2 split valve guides and 1 broken follower. There is no apparent damage to the pistons 
. I found spare parts a challenge to find but I now have a second hand head complete with valves and I tracked down some new valves for the other head in the US. (I ordered them on Monday and they arrived on Wednesday, cartridge was £7.89, I can’t complain at that). I have reset all the followers using a sowing needle in the small hole in the top to release the pressure and flushed them all out with diesel. I only have limited facilities and resources but hopefully it will all go back together okay. Thanks for your interest
I have heard about pre loading them but I don’t know how or why it is done. How do you pressurise to the correct gap amount? Maybe someone else knows the answer to this.
My experience with rebuild on top is to submerged lifters in clean diesel fuel preferably IMHO kerosene since cleaner and yet lower viscosity. I submerged mine in kerosene pumped up lifters then bled off but note a minute amount of kerosene or diesel is left in lifter it will compress without holding valves wide open and allow oil priming to proceed .
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Just putting new lifters on my ‘93 VR4. Can’t decided to slightly pre-load them with oil to quiet them quickly, or, as you emphasized in your video - decompress them completely before installing. How long did it tick on restart with the fully decompressed lifters? Did the tick go away completely? Thanks for the great video, BTW.
It takes no more than 60 seconds usually. The problem with reloading is you don’t know how much is too much and there is a risk that with aftermarket lifters, it may push the valve down too much and hit will hit the piston. I know this from personal experience.
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Makes sense. These are the 3rd gen (3mm) after market-lifters. I assume the larger bore allows quicker oil flow-thru and priming than the OEM’s (1mm). Thanks for your response.