Gidday, tis my first post here so I figured I'd try and make it a good one, so i'm detailing how i replaced my lifters and a bit of a photo tour of the top of the engine.

This is my baby

1999 AU series 1 (late) XR6.

Unfortunately it recently developed a tick that was quite noticeable, after it didn't go away after a few minutes I figured it was the dreaded lifters (or hydraulic lash adjusters to be precise).
Anyway I spoke to ford and they wanted $82 each, and you need 12. So I spoke to my local head guy who is rather a top bloke and he supplied them for me for around $180 all up.

Tools needed
sockets and pliers
small hammer
pin punch 3mm dia or so (or the stem of a rivet )
torque wrench (probably not needed but it made me happy)
grease

Anyway
Click on the pics for high res
Step 0
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Mah donk in all its red XR6 glory, note the sun angle, don't attempt this task starting i the afternoon, it took me ~4-6 hours all up and i wound up putting it all back together in the morning.

Step 1
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Take off the air thingie that connects the airbox hose to the throttle body, take off the 2 screws on the intake manifold, loosen the hose clamp on the intake then pull the thingie off, bit of a wobble is needed on this bit.

Step 2
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Take off cam breather tube,
(i did it in a different order, but its a good idea)


Step 3
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Take off throttle cable, pull the wire part of the cable to open the butterfly valve all the way, then hang onto the cam type dealie, and use the slack in the cable to twist it around over the top and slip the lead pin that holds onto the cable out the side. I stuck it down in a convenient hole in the body

Step 4
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Take of spark plug leads
I just wrote on them with a sharpie to number them near the plug ends

Step 5
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Take of the crank breather tube

Step 6
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Take off the brake booster vacuum line I found it a PITA to release the hose clamp from the booster side, but a really big pair of pliers is handy. I thought I might be able to get away without it, but there wasn't enough slack to get the rocker cover off without taking it off.

Step 7
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Now it gets interesting/scary.
Take off the bolts that hold the rocker cover down, pull them all the way out and bag em up. I left them in and wound up loosing one in my lawn, found it eventually but it wasn't a pleasant period of time

Step 8
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Admire your still mostly working engine and hope that over the course of the next few hours you don't do something horrible to it.

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Not related to anything but when people talk about the bright links, this is what they are talking about.

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Close up of the end of the rocker pillars, you can see where the rocker cover mounts, also this end seems to be somewhat more varnished than the other for some reason, guess it gets a bit warmer.

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A view down the inside of the rockers, theres alot of widgets and doohckeys here but don't worry too much you don't actually have to pull things apart.

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Inside of the rocker cover, you can see the a** end of the PCR valve next to the oil filler cap, also the rocker cover hold down bolts, before one of them decided to go walkies.

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Close up of a rocker, valve and HLA, you can see the cam shaft as well.
Get some clean rags, (I used those kitchen wipes that come on a roll, not paper towels, the fabric ones) and cover up the right hand side of the engine, where the oil holes are and around the timing chain, you don't want any bits falling down there.

At this point my hands got covered in oil, and as such there are fewer photos :-<
Step 9
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This is the end result
Take the bolts out of the top of the rocker pillars, Its important really important that you take them off one turn at a time starting at the outsides and working to the center.
I cracked all the bolts open to start with then took them out somewhat hap hazardly, as a result as the valve springs push the rocker shafts up it came off C**k and got jammed, big pain in the a** to get off then. If you do it one turn at a time it'll come off square and you should be golden.

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This is what a HLA looks like when its in place, you will notice the plastic bag there providing a nice clean surface to work on

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A bag of HLAs ready to go.

Step 10
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now comes the fun part, take it over to a table, get a seat and get a system.
I found the best way of getting the old lifters out was to use the steel shaft off a rivet as a pin, insert that through the hole in the top of the rocker and to gently tap the old lifter out, I used a spark plug spanner from our lawn mower to give the lifter somewhere to go.
A friend of mine reckons he could pull them out with vice grips covered in cloth, but it wasn't going to work for me. Also i had no need for the cloth because I wasn't reusing the lifters.

Step 11
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To hold the new lifters in i smeared the outside of them in grease then inserted them.
(now i'm covered in oil and grease, so its only thanks to the assistance of the sexy camera lady you get these photos)
On the back of the lifters are shims, they have a slot on one side and mine had 3 small groves on the other, the slot goes to the top of the engine and is needed for the oil to get into the lifter, The head guy told me numerous stories of him returning heads to guys after he ported them whilst the guys did their own lifters, who put the shims in backwards and had all 12 lifters ticking away afterwards.
To carry it back to the engine, i just flipped all the rockers over and flipped them back after it was sitting on the engine.

I put the bolts in the end pillars and sat it on the engine, then I flipped the rockers over, during this process one of the new lifters fell out, but I just stuck it back in again, It helped having an eagle eyed (and sexy) spotter there to help line the HLA's up ontop of the valves.

Its really important you put the rocker assembly back on square, there are some pin type things sticking up that line everything up that the bolts go through,(rocker pedestal dowels is the fancy name) the head guy also related stories of people who crushed the crap out of them putting the rocker assembly back on. result = new head.

Again the trick is go slow, I did the bolts up very lightly finger tight and checked the spacing on the pillars to ensure everything was level, then do the one turn at a time trick again, this time starting from the center and working to the ends.
when it was getting a bit harder, I dropped down to half a turn

when it touches down you'll feel the bolts get hard to turn, at that point go round all the bolts and make sure they are all just nutted up. Do that bit twice, I missed some first time around.

Now bust out the torque wrench and from the outside to the middle do each bolt up to 22NM, go over it twice. (you can probably do without the wrench, and just go for "firm" but ey why not do it right ay?)

Remove the rags and put the rocker cover back on.

I replaced the gasket on the rocker cover while doing this, I'm not entirely sure it was needed but for $7 why not, It came with replacements for the gaskets in the rocker cover bolts but they looked like a pain in the a** to put on, so I didn't bother theres been no leaks that I could see.

Reverse the steps you did to take the rocker cover off, make sure the brake booster vacuum line is connected and secure also the throttle cable is easy to miss.

Tips
If you leave the bolts in the inside two holes of the end two rocker pillars then the rockers won't come off the shafts. Also the shafts have grooves cut in them for the bolts to fit through, it can make putting the bolts back in a bit hard.

I initially couldn't get the HLA's out and so i went to pull the rockers off and use a vice to get them out, however there was a burr on the end of the shaft which scored the inside of the rocker quite badly, needless to say I was p****d, anyway I smoothed it out again with a bit of steel wool followed up by a green scouring pad, I then took a file to the end of the shaft and gently took off the burr, it wasn't much, it just felt "pointy". Put the rocker back on, and came up with the hammer + pin system.

Oh btw, for those of you feeling keen, the rocker cover bolt tightening torque is 17Nm

Last edited by Valen on Mon Sep 13, 2010 9:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well thats my first post done, I think its time for a beer, unfortunately I just had my wisdom teeth ripped out, and i'm on like 5 medications which say in big letters "NO ALCOHOL"
Lemme know if you want any more detail on things i might have another photo or two.

Oh yeah forgot to mention, its a good time to clean yer rocker cover too, just rember to make sure theres no water on the inside of it when your done.

Hey bud, good post but just wanted you to correct one way you did something.
When u were cracking/removing rocker arm retaining bolts, you started from the middle.
You should start from the outside n work your way in when removing and start from the centre
and work your way out when tightening.
Thats all

efmonty88

Going from memory on which way I did it, so your probably right I'll correct the post.

Great post! Obviously everyone is going to have difference in opinions on how to do it (so don't get too offended if people tell you you did it wrong)

My only advice - get some masking tape and tape around the lifters to hold them in when removing the rocker gear, and same when putting it back in - saves you having to worry about lifters falling out

Apart from that good post.

I don't think it makes too much difference provided you make sure its square really.

As far as I know, you loosen the bolt from the outside and work your way inwards to minimize the chance of warping the head.

Great write up though.

Does anybody know, once you've got some hyd lifter out, how to check if they are noisey
or not? Coz i dont want to replace all of them.

cheers
efmonty88

Did you have any noise from the HLAs after you replaced them? I've had my rocker assembly on and off 5 times after a head gasket change and they're still noisy. I can't figure out what the problem is as they were quiet previously.

They were noisy to start with.
Forgive me if i'm a little disjointed I'm halfway high with added headache on some antibiotic for wisdom teeth.

Anyway.
Before I started the engine I put a glug (precisely measured) of oil in through the filler hole just so there was some oil up the top, nfi if it made a difference.
On ignition it was pretty noisy for around 10 seconds or so, (basically just lots of lifter noise.) that died down to one or two that took another 5 seconds or so.

I took it for a gentle drive and gradually expanded the envelope over 10 minutes or so (building RPM and power) and all was well.

What I have noticed however is the lifter noise came back a few times on startup and persisted for a minute or three.
I figure the lifters may well have sucked some air in their initial startup and that was bleeding out of them. Now (~ 2 weeks) later everything seems glassy smooth.


@Shortshift
When I was speaking to the head guy he said that he had people who had put the shims in backwards, and as a result the lifters weren't able to get any oil. Double check the writeup to be sure, but i believe they go the side with the slot facing up.

@EFMONTY88
You can clean them out I believe but i haven't done it, the problem that occurs is the check valve becomes jammed or the lifter itself is unable to slide to take up the slack. You may be able to find the one thats not working that well, and clean it, but if your in there anyway, strip and reassemble all of them. Seriously though its like 2 and a bit tanks of fuel ;->

correct, loosen bolts in steps going from outside working way to middle, and reaseembly is vice versa

i believe its to prevent damage to the main rods in the rocker arm assembly (whatever you call them)

and yes schticky tape is the G.O. before removing the rocker gear........... 99% of the time the retaining clips are buggered and s**t falls out everywhere

epic +1,000,000 for sticky

They look something like this.

 

 

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wow nice write up, well done.

@cjh
thanks for the pic, I probably should have included one, but I was covered in filth and wanted to get my car back on the road at the time