Before I put my engine back together, can someone tell me if there is a way to check if a roller lifter is bad or not while it is out of the engine?

 

spin the roller, if it's bad you can feel it bind

 

What about checking for a collapsed lifter?

 

No such thing. There's nothing to "collapse".

You can take them apart and make sure they're clean inside. Soak them in carburetoir cleaner or something and wash them thoroughly afterwards with lacquer thinner. Make absolutely certain you get the parts back into the same lifter they came out of, as they are a matched set. Don't get them mixed up.

I think once you see the inside, you'll immediately know why there's no such thing as a "collapsed lifter". That's what people who don't know what they're doing call it when they really mean "I've got a mystery valve train ticking noise and I can't find it". Those noises almost never have anything to do with a lifter.