There's not a whole lot of difference between having the train loosened enough to raise all the arms enough to do them in situ or going ahead and lifting the whole thing out onto a bench.... - but no, as long as you don't drop anything down the gaps into the sump (bits of rag to blank the gaps are good idea) there's no reason you do have to take the whole thing right off the engine altogether.

One thing to keep in mind with lifters that have the plastic retainers on them is that sometimes those retainers can disintegrate when the lifters are pushed out (ie. especially original factory retainers - ie. with old and brittle and perished retainers) - so you need to then make sure all the bits of retainer are properly cleaned out of the arms. To do that it's definitely a good idea to have the whole thing on a bench.

Later style lifters with the metal ring instead of push on plastic collars of course won't have that issue.

great post mate. cheers

This was so much help. I just done my EF Fairmont, had a mean ticking noise when it was warm. I went to "pick a part" and got set of second hand AU lifters cleaned them up and put them in... I was amazed as the ticking was gone and thanks to this post (Valen) I probably would of stuffed it up...Cheers from NZ!!!

ah damn, pictures have broken links now, hopefully can find one with some pics.

Sorry about that, my web host had a hardware failure and I hadn't been backing that part of it up.
I'll see if I can fix it at some point

Did you end up fixing the pics? I've never worked on an engine so would be a massive help (my xr6 is ticking quite loud)