I thought of something to convert my hydraulic lifters to solid ones and would like to know what you guys think about.

I have a 4K and a 5K. Both use D shaped pistons and I want to convert my hydraulics to solids in my 5K as they are too noisy...

If I take the spring out and fill the lifter with washers (or something else) blocking the movement of the inner body, would I be able to use 4K pushrods and rocker gear?

After measuring everything to know how much to fill the lifter, of course...

You can use Toyota Landcruiser 3F solid lifters and the early 4k short pushrods.

 

More relevant to your question tho, when i just recently built my 5k we just took the hydro lifters out, gutted them turned them upside down and popped them in.

 

Car still goes.

I know about 3F lifters, but I'm just not gonna pay 23€ per each...

Woah, whereabouts are you located? I was quoted about $8 AUD (so what, 6 EURO or something) when i looked into it. But like i said, we just took the hydro ones out and turned them upside down, you could do that? its free. Or did you miss the rest of the comment?

Woah, whereabouts are you located? I was quoted about $8 AUD (so what, 6 EURO or something) when i looked into it. But like i said, we just took the hydro ones out and turned them upside down, you could do that? its free. Or did you miss the rest of the comment?

 

I'm in Portugal.

 

Can you explain me that process like I am a very dumb guy?

The lifter top and bottom faces are totally different. The bottom part is a very flat surface to work on the cam as the top part it's concave so the pushrod will fit in there.

Would the top part work well on the cam and would the pushrod work well on the flat surface?

What pushrods shall I use? 4K ones?

Sorry for so many questions but I'm just not seeing how a flipped lifter could work :bash:

Sorry man, i should've explained myself better, i do believe i've confused myself haha.

 

We didn't turn the whole lifter upside down, I'm pretty sure it was just the washer on the inside we flipped.

 

So basically we pulled the lifter out. Pulled all the insides out, and then flipped that little washer upside down that held the insides in the lifter and then reinstalled it. Yes, we used 4k pushrods. The short ones i'm pretty sure. I'll try find some pics.

So you let the washer inside upside down with no more inner parts? Basically the washer goes to the bottom and the pushrod also goes to the bottom?

If it was me, I'd leave the hydro's in........

If it was me, I'd leave the hydro's in........

 

They're making a really awfull and agressive noise...

Already disassembled and cleaned everything and still the same..

It's likely that a lifter or 2 has collapsed and isn't functioning properly or lifter preload is incorrect.

NB: if you convert to solid lifters you also need to change your camshaft to suit solid lifters.

Edited June 28, 201610 yr by GJM85

Yeah you would think to use a suitable solid lifter, get them ground to hydro, use suitable pushrods that keep the same swipe adjustment on

the rockers but not entirely sure if you can run a solid valve train on a hydro cam even with hydro-faced solid lifters to suit though... hmmm

Edited June 28, 201610 yr by styler

It's hard to tell what people are using after searching countless threads but I am interested to know as well, I seemed to get the following setups out of it...

 

1. hydro cam, hydro lifter gutted and modified, suitable pushrod, hydro rockers(non adjustable)

2. hydro cam, hydro lifter gutted and modified, suitable pushrod, solid rockers(adjustable)

3. solid cam, solid lifter, suitable pushrod, solid rockers(adjustable)

4. leave the damn hydro's alone

 

1. The minimal way

Gut the hydro lifter out and modify it to use a suitable pushrod length to the hydro rockers(non adjustable)

 

2. The halfway conversion

Gut the hydro lifter out and modify it to use a suitable pushrod length to solid rockers(adjustable)

 

3. The complete conversion

Seems there's 2 types of suitable solid lifter: 5k/3f solid and the other a holden/chev 202 solid. All lifters need to be faced to match the camshaft, ie ground to suit the cam profile.

The pushrods appear to be various length k motor pushrods and datsun a12 pushrods.The rocker gear needs to be the adjustable (solid) type not the non adjustable (hydro).

The main problem seems to be the pushrod length due to different head heights, block heights, skimmed heads, reground cams, machined posts and headgasket thickness all adding up

affecting the pushrod length needed. So no one solution seems to cover all motor builds really, probably best to dummy assemble the motor and then measure up for a set of custom pushrods

to suit rather than try make everything else magically fit the few pushrod lengths available. So one would get a solid cam, solid lifters, solid adjustable rockers and then dummy assemble

the motor, measure pushrod length required and hope one exists or get some made custom to suit. Maybe lighten the solid lifters with a bit of machining as well if needed. That's my theory

so far anyway...

 

4. No conversion

No work required, just leave them perfectly good hydro's in there

 

There's 2 oil feed warnings, one for shims if used under the cam towers needing an oil feed hole in them and one for blocking off an oil gallery feed to the original hydro lifters if removed via grubscrew/pin of sorts.

Edited June 28, 201610 yr by styler

Sorry Viterbo, i don't get much of a chance to post haha. what you said is correct, the push rod goes into the lifter and to the bottom, i think we left the washer in there to give it somewhat of a pivot point.

 

Styler - I can give you some certainty haha, we did the halfway conversion. so...

 

gutted hydro lifters, 4k pushrods, solid rockers.

 

The motor was built from the ground up and i received it in pretty bad condition so the option to keep the hydro lifters wasn't really applicable to me. Also i didn't want another moving part in that system of the motor to break as it revs to 9000rpm most days (to keep up with traffic haha). We went to do the 3F plus custom pushrod combo but decided to use what we had from my graveyard of k series motors.

 

There's 2 oil feed warnings, one for shims if used under the cam towers needing an oil feed hole in them and one for blocking off an oil gallery feed to the original hydro lifters if removed via grubscrew/pin of sorts.

 

What do you mean by this Styler?

So I have 4K pushrods and rocker gear and 5K hydros, pushrods and rocker gear.

5K head is the same as 4K with a good skim with a perfectly normal paper gasket (Payen).

So if I gut the hydros, flip the washer and fit the 4K pushrod on top of the washer on the bottom of the lifter, with 4K adjustable rocker gear, I'll be fine?

I also have a 4K cam, so it is designed for solids!

sounds good, there's so many variables with these motors tho, so i'd dummy fit the engine up before you fully assemble it

 

oh and make sure you put the 4k adjustable rocker gear into the 5k head, if you put the 4k head on the 5k you'll have very very little compression. As most the combustion chamber in the 4k is in the head, and in the 5k its on the piston thats why they are dished..