I recently rebuilt my 350 tpi and installed some hydraulic roller lifters that I got off ebay. They were brand new and worked great until one took a dump and blew apart. I replaced it with a oreillys sealed power hydraulic roller stock replacment and didn't get any oil to the top of the pushrod. I gave it a week warm-up and light driving to see if it would get better. Nothing on that one lifter. took the intake off and replaced it with a Crane hydraulic roller and same thing. I noticed that the lifters I got off ebay have a hole all the way through the top piece of the lifter but the others are side oil. If you know what I mean. I haven't drove it yet but with just priming the oil pump I get nothing with the new crane lifter, turning engine over to push down on the lifter and still nothing. My question is if all 15 lifters are disigned as a straight threw oil and one is a different could this be why I'm not getting anything to the pushrod? The funny thing is when I take the pushrod off the lifter and just prime it then oil comes out of the lifter hole like normal. It just doesn't have pressure to get it to the top of the pushrod. weird?? Normal??

 

is the pushrod damaged or blocked with debris from the old lifter?

 

i would check the pushrod as well...........possible the pushrod end could be blocked with debris or mushroomed shut from the lifter giving out.

 

id throw away that sealed power lifter(they are also the same as comp cams/crane/summit brand... basically just repackaged sealed powers). i replaced all my stock ones when i rebuilt my motor to a 383 HSR and within 300 miles i snapped 2 rocker studs and destroyed a 265$ compcams XFI roller cam which only had 300miles on it. the lifters werent pumping up and i was getting exessive play in the pushrods, causing them to beat against the rockers until the rocker studs failed. i also had one blow its guts all over my lifter valley and one turned in the bore and scored my cam. ive just replaced them with GM performance parts LS7 lifters but ive noticed that im not getting as much oil as i would like at the rocker still.

check the pushrod as stated, make sure u can see through it. u might have to pull the lifter out and clean it out, sometime the are gunked up with machining lube. also can u confirm your oil pressure with a mechanical gauge? electronic gauges can be trusted since they are not accurate.

i also did not get oil out to the rockers when i primed it, i was getting 30psi on my mechanical gauge with a slow speed 1/2" drill, primed it for 3 min and got nothing. i said screw it and started her up... took maybe 10min to get a small amount of oil up to the rocker, eventually it became more but still not enough for my tastes. ( i would say start it up with the valve covers off and see wat happens. DONT let the engine run for more than a few min without filling up the rocker fulcrum with oil. i did this with a qt of 30wt as the engine was running so it was never running dry. i would give them a small dose every couple of min or so.

 

are you soaking the lifter in oil before you install it??? needs to soak for a good amount of time, like overnight.

 

originally i thought that as well. i soaked all my lifters for a few hrs before installation. thats the speedpros that sucked. i then asked ppl how they were installing them, most if not all of them replied that theres no need to soak them. just make sure the roller tips roll freely and if u want to clean them in solvant before. basically just make sure the rollers roll freely and lube the bores of the lifters so u dont install them dry, and put some lube on the roller part that contacts the cam.

i lubed mine with assembly lube and i do not recomend it. assembly lube is too thick and i think thats what caused my no oil on startup issue.

 

Do you have a factory roller block?