On Friday I finished the head job on my EA-II, CFI/LPG, with an EA head* on an EF/EL block** and when puting the rocker channel posts back on I noticed two of the lifters had lost their anvils*** so I replaced the lot with new (not cheap ).

I would have assumed they had fallen down the oil ways into the sump, then caught by the magnet, so I fail to see how they could get thrown about, but I am not as familiar as some here about the internals of these engines.

Now I am getting this little rattle every now and then from within the motor that sounds like a single bit of metal being thrown around a metal barrel, not hard, just flicked.

It also sounds very like metal expansion ping from heat, so I am not sure, however, if it is the anvils from the old hydraulic lifters, could this cause any real harm?

Or is the metal expansion pinging something you get with any new rebuild?
Unfortunately the only motors I have prior experience on are the old GMH grey/red (circa 50 - 70's) motors, old (70's) Kawasaki 4's or the big Rolls Royce diesels (also 70's) from the railways****.


Footnotes
* The old head was soft as cheese and had numerous cracks, also would this make it 4.0 or 3.9 litre?
** I'm led to believe this should slightly increase compression along with the AU head gasket, Is this also true?
*** That's what I call the tiny oval disc held onto the end of the lifter by a small plastic collar, correct me if I'm wrong, please.
**** And the railway steamers which I don't think are relevant to this

I reckon you would have to be pretty unlucky to have a HLA picked up by the crank. If you remember on the grey motors, you could easily drop stuff into the sump, and it generally stayed there.

Maybe you could fish around under the sump with a magnet, draw the HLA towards the drain hole, and hook it out with a bit of wire, or a magnetic pick up tool??

Just a thought, it might work

As for the rest, I couldn't hazard a guess.

Already in hand, I figure I'll drain and drop the sump in place, should give me an inch or so to see into it, if not I'll undo the mounts and lift the motor up, then fish anything in there out.

It was running rich, I think because of the swirl ridge (smaller firing chamber?), so I had to re-tune the LPG for idle and acceleration flow.

Except for that intermittent ping, which I cannot hear inside the car, it's running very smoothly and quietly.