Stud torque in Block

[Garymand]

What is the right way to install the head studs? Got my M44.52 block sleaved and the machinist just hand tightened them. I can't find the installation proceedure in the manuals.

[nynor]

the real issue is that you don't want the studs to be bottomed out in their holes. the studs bottoming out can damage the block as things expand. if you have the studs out already, you are doing pretty damn good. clean out the stud holes really good with some brake cleaner.

the last time i did this, i tightened the studs all the way down, then backed them off 1/2 to 3/4 a turn. i put a little blue loctite on them to hold them in place while torquing the head. i also marked them with a vertical line to make sure they didn't rotate while torquing the head.

as for the lifter, i'd soak that guy in some sea-foam product over-night. then i'd soak it overnight in some lightweight oil, say 10/20 or 10/30. you may want to just replace those lifters if they really haven't been in oil for ten years. they do have rubber seals, IIRC, and that would be bad for them. really bad. i can't remember if they can be rebuilt.

[Garymand]

Thanks, Wow, I would have bottomed them and then added some torque. I was planning on using red high strength locktite.

BTW, when the head is removed, the lower stud holes fill with water. If you don't clean it out, the lower studs will get rust pitted. My block sat in the car with water in the holes and a little in #2 and 3 bores. It destroyed the bore surface and baddly pitted one stud. It forced me to sleeve the block. The machinist didnt tell me about the pitted studs, you can only see the damage with a small inspection lite or pulling them.

Lifters, how to fix/pre-oil them: I took one collapsed lifter apart. Its all steel; a plunger with a ball and spring check valve inside sliding in a tight fit cavity. With lots of oil pressure and tipically very little plunging action because it is compressing oil when it is full of oil, like it is supposed to be. Nothing typically to wear out inside. I think the way these should fail is when the outer surface finish gets too rough or if debry somehow gets through the puck into the ball and seat. To fix them you need to understand how they work, a pan of oil and something to push the plunger down awith a sustained force of 10 or 20 lbs. I got a good shoulder workout re-oiling 8 lifters and 6 spares. Once I got 8 great ones and two spares, I quit on the last 4 with a little play maybe 0.02 inch of air left.

How the lifters work: The puck has an oil path through the puck and around the plunger cavity forming some amount of oil resevour. The puck cavity empties through a similar hole on the opposite side of the plunger. and at about the same level as the input hole. A precision plunger fills the center cavity with a very fine fit. The plunger has an outside ring groove to collect oil and feed it into a small hole leading into the plunger past a ball and spring check valve. When the puck, cavity and plunger are full of oil, the piston is like a shock absorber trying to compress oil against a check valve. Oil doesn't compress well, that's why gas shocks work so well, they valve through oil and compress gas. If the plunger can move down, it allows oil to flow through the inner puck hole, into the a groove around the plunger(compressing air or squishing oil past a badly worn plunger, or gushing oil past a stuck open check valve, or broken spring) . When fully extended, the plunger is a vlave blocking the oil port to the cavity. Oil can't get in with the plunger up and the plunger can't get too far down by compressing oil. Under normal oil pressure, oil will try to push into the cavity and leak down around the the valve stem. If the plunger goes in some distance I didn't measure, the ring groove engages the oil hole and oil pressure. If there is air being compressed oil can flow past the check ball and squirt into the hollow plunger and try to displace/compress the air in the cavity. That groove is about 1/8 inch, so if the plunge goes too far in, it shuts the hole off and no more oil gets in as the plunger goes deeper compressing air. Oil is much more viscus than air and will take longer to push out between the plunger and the cavity walls. The air can be pushed out faster than the oil and will migrate up the walls of the the cavity. But the puck is upside down in the motor, the air can only get out by being forced down. Yes, air doesn't sink in oil. It can only get out in normal use when oil is pushing the plunger agaist the valve spring.

To pre-oil (fill) the collapsed lifter, I used the plunger to make pressure and vacuum, and gravity to get oil into the puck and to float the bubbles out of the puck. The plunger is a tight fit and I saw very little air coming out past the plunger. By far, the air came out of the puck hole as oil came in. The plunger replaces the air with oil as it moves back out sucking some oil past the ball and somehow, allowing some air to get back into the puck. You need to get the air out and oil in. Basically the oil falls into the outside puck hole, fills the puck, displaces air in the puck and puts some little pressure on the plunger trying to get into the cavity under the influence of just gravity. As the plunger comes back out, it forms a suction behind the ball, sucks oil from the groove and through the hole in the puck and plugs the hole again. It is a slow process but it works.

The puck is hard to get apart so I don't know how big the oil cavity is, but I have gotten a lot of little air bubbles out of a collapsed lifter, hundreds, about 10 at a time.

The plunger is pushed against a return spring and can travel maybe a 3/8 inch total. Then the oil has a problem if the cavity is filled with air: the air just compresses and the plunger hits the bottom of the cavity. Oil flows to yher bottom of the cavity displacing some air. Holding the plunger down allows time for the comressed air to work its way out one bubble at a time. If the plunger rebounds quicky, not much air excapes, but the suction pulls in a little oil.

Where does the air go? It can't go back through the check valve. Oil is either coming in or the spring has the ball closed. The only path for the air is along the walls of the plunger and out into the cup, normally (down) toward the valve stem. Normally it must collect under the lip of the puck in a captive big bubble. And it takes a lot of time to all that air to work its way out of a colapsed lifter. I put 150 miles on mine and still 3 were nearly empty. 3 were not compressing valve stems and still had a lot of oil in them.

So what is the Fix??? Half of my lifters had lost most of their oil as the car sat for 9 years and the valve springs slowly forced the oil out of the cavity behind the plunger. When the cam cam off, the plungers came up and sucked in air. Since I took one apart I could see that I had to get oil in and air out without taking them apart. If I had a lot of time to wait, I could set them in ATF or very thin petro oil and wait for gravity to push the oil to find its way through the puck, into the plunger, down the side of the cavity from the hole and slowly replace air along its path and push some of the air up the other side of the plunger and out past the plunger. Since it can't get past the check valve, the air will remain in the plunger upto the ball. That is at least 1/3 of the cavity. That is a pocket of air about the size of an asprin. I have no idea how that can get out in a normal motor.

I used the plunger like a pump to push or maybe just get the air moving. Gravity will force the oil down and the the air up through the puck as well as up the side of the plunger. When you push it into its bore, the ball closes and you should be pressing the air out any where it can go. Oil can drain into the puck and leak out if the puck is sitting in a cup of oil with the hole up.

It is easy to tell which pucks are full of air and how much full. Just submerge them in an oil bath and push the piston down. The deeper the plunger goes, the more oil has leaked out. It is simple to get the air out but it takes many pounds of force and time for the bubbles to more, to get the last half out.

I used a long handled bit driver and a padded glove on my hand to work the plunger and hold it down forcing the air out. Find a pan to put all the pucks on the bottom, plunger up. Fill with oil (I used 10-40) to above the lifters. Push on each plunger to see how bad they are and sort them best to worst. A perfect one will have no play and lots of resistance. Start with one that is only half bad where the piston goes partially down. This will teach you how to work the plunger and bubbles. Put the selected puck in a flat bottomed little pan and submerge it in oil.

Locate the hole so you can see the air coming out in small bubbles. I used a small stainless mixing bowl (my wife will never use it again, and probably never forget I ruined her bowl.) The bowl needs to sit at a small angle so the bubbles flow up through the oil on its way out of the puck. Push the plunger down and wait for the bubbles. Patience, it takes a while for the air to work its way through the oil, around the plunger groove , out the hole into the puck, around the puck and out the hole. And sometimes it takes a long sustained pressure to move the bubbles up along their path. Often it was a few bubbles 10 to 20 in a string and then a gush of a few big ones. Then do it again and again and again, until all the bubbles stop. If you are luck, the plunger will be solid when the bubbles stop. Don't count on it. I think the bubbles find places to hold onto and you need to set it on its side and let it rest for a while.

I had 3 pucks that resisted expelling all the air. I found a small c clamp that could push the plunger down to its bottom. It works great to get those last 10 or 20 bubbles out , but don't let the bubbles out with no oil going in to replace it. And don't stop with play in the plunger. Any give means air is still in there.

I wish I had know about this when I put the cam back on. I could have saved a lot of grief over knocking lifters and not knowing when they will fill up. And in the upside-down location under the cam, you may never get all the air out out of the plunger cavity. It will just stay compressed up at the bottom of the piston cavity. Unless u are flying upside down....

[nynor]

you can use red loctite. the factory uses some crazy strong stuff. its not necessary, however.

that is a good write up on getting your lifters working again.