Hey all,

I've just fitted an XR6 cam and rockers out of my Tickford XG ute, into my recently purchased XH Longreach. I'm fitted the hydraulic lifters out of the engine, which is an AU (not sure of series) engine. So I'm running an XG XR6 cam in an AU head with the XG rockers fitted with AU lifters and shims. Now all the rockers seemed to have only a little play in them, which I thought would be enough that once driven/ran, the slack would be taken up by oil filling the lifters.
The car is still ticking after 10 minutes of initial warm up and 15 minutes of driving it.
And ideas what could be the issue? The lifters were not noisy when I pulled them out of the AU rocker gear.
Do they need more shimming? Or will this noise disappear after a few days?

Regards,
Brutus.

It can take a few days sometimes for the lifters to stop ticking.

Thanks for that SWC.
So I shouldn't be concerned about excessive lifter noise just yet?

Regards,
Brutus.

What size were the XG lifters 14mm or 11mm?

Did you bleed down the lifters before fitting?

I just checked the XG lifters for diameter. 11mm is what they are reading. I put the AU (also 11mm?) lifters into the XG rocker gear without bleeding them up manually purely because they came straight out of the AU rocker gear and into the XG rocker gear.
I also made sure all the shims went back in the same way they came out.

You should bleed them down when refitting.

So you'd say there's my issue?
If so, should I be pulling it out again ASAP and bleeding them? Or will they bleed thenselves up soon enough?

Regards.

On another forum, a guy seems to think there's a shim size difference between the EA-EL's and the AU. Could anyone confirm this for me?
I am running AU shims in my XG XR6 rocker gear. Seem plausible?

Regards,
Brutus

ea and eb are 14mm I think, possibly early ed aswell, not 100%, ef, el, au are 11mm

This must be a late ED because the shims are 11mm. I mean thickness, not so much diameter.

Regards,
Brutus

There were 3 thickness's listed for the EF Shims (11mm) by Ford, 1.6mm, 1.8mm 2.1mm.

I have only ever seen 1.7/1.8mm thickness shims. E series and AU are interchangable (same shim) so you should have no issues.

Late ED changed over to the 11mm rocker, so you will find both 14mm and 11mm lifters in different ED's.

When you're talking about the 14mm and 11mm lifters, I assume you mean as in their diameter? If so, I have the 11mm lifters from the AU gear in my XR6 gear. I'm thinking because there's the different rocker ratio, that they need that bit of extra shimming too make them nice and tight.
I'm needing the car for work, so I'm planning to drive it for this week, order shims identical in size to the XR6 shims and fit them next weekend. Fingers crossed they bleed up and that's all it needs. If not, I'll reshim.

Regards,
Brutus

There are 2 diameters
a) EA - Early ED 14mm.
b) EF - AU - 11mm

You will not find new shims from Ford as they are obsolete stock.

The shims from either your XG or thr AU will be fine.

So today I've dicided to try the old ATF trick to clean up lifters.
I got one of the qualifieds at work to have a listen and he reckons it's only one or two making the noise, not the whole lot.
So in with 1.5L of ATF to see what happens. We're confident the shims are the same size and are thinking that possibly one or two have decided to be gummed up and not take in oil to adjust for the higher lift cam.
If by weeks end this changes nothing, I'll buy a new set of lifters and try them in it.

Regards,
Brutus

Mmm, lot of good info in here, - thought I'd just mention that
if you obtain lifters from a wreckers, be careful they haven't
simply grabbed the projecting end of the lifter with PLIERS
and yanked them (hard!) out - the lifter can be squashed
by the crush load the pliers extert on their bodies because it
often takes considerable force to remove them after they've
been a long time in an rocker arm. And the squashing I'm talking
about causes the lifter body to go slightly 'oval', (so they are
never the same again, even when you manage to re-insert
them into a rocker arm..)
Me, to get lifters out when they are firmly stuck in the rocker
arm, (with the rocker arm out of the engine) I use the flat end
of a drill bit inserted into the hole in the top of the rocker arm
and tap with a hammer using progressively more force until the
lifter starts to back out of the arm - if you tap gently, eventually
they start to shift out, and the tapping shouldn't hurt them as
the drill bit end is bearing directly onto the shim above the lifter.

Incidently, after you have done a lifter reinstall, and if at some
later time want to again remove the rocker gear from the head,
an idea is to cut the fingers from surgical type gloves, & rotate by
hand the crank so that each rocker arm can lift slightly clear of
contacting the valve end, then slip the finger over the end of each
rocker arm containing a lifter - this ensures when you lift the whole
rocker assembly off the head, that any lifters sitting loosely in their
rockers arms don't immediately fall down out and onto the head
(possibly to disappear e.g. down the oil drain channels into the
sump...). (I seem to remember I tried this also by simply loosening
all the rocker assembly bolts and slightly lifting up the whole
rocker assembly, but this didn't work as some of the rockers arms
remained hard in contact with their valve ends while others were
fully clear, so the rotate-the-crank-whilst-rocker-assy-bolted-down
way of doing it was preferred.) Cheers