VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1949-1954 1950 235 Hydraulic Lifters

Does anybody know what years are common to the 1950 235 engine for hydraulic valve lifters? I have called all my local parts houses today and nobody seems to have them available anymore.

Check with Egge machine.

The lifters available today are junk.
The correct lifters fit 1950-1952 only.
I bought a few extra to have on hand for my '50....found them on ebay. How many do you need?

I have 12 new ones that I had purchased over the years but nine of them are playing hide and seek with me, it's amazing how much stuff one can buy and set aside over 14 years. I have three TRW's, would you have nine more?

I had four new lifters. Gave three to various friends that had a single lifter problem....have one left.
Why do you wannt to replace the lifters? They are quite trouble free with todays oils.

The lifters in this car always were a problem going back to when the original owner purchased it. I took this engine apart back in 1998 and the lifters sat in a box on the work bench all those years. I know that I could take them apart one by one and clean up the insides and put them back together but I'm slowly running out of spare time to work on the car and I just want to make it run with the least problems. The frustrating part is that I bought new aftermarket lifters over the years of colleting parts and now I can't find them

Your original lifters could be okay many owners in the 1950s had problems with the hydraulic lifters because they were using non -detergent motor oil. I had a 52 powerglide that would not hardly run when I changed to Phillips TropicArtic. Phillips 66 new premium but low detergent oil. I went back to HD Quaker State, no more problems
I had a set of hydraulic lifters from a powerglide engine I salvaged and I stored them in a large coffee can filled with ATF for several years. I broke them down and cleaned them in varsolve and filled them with HD motor oil and put them in a engine we built for a friend and the engine ran like new. You need to be sure they are good and clean.

I'm thinking about giving this a try, you make it sound fairly easy. They show a fancy tool in the shop manual for holding it together while you assemble it, I assume that the right size drill bit would do the same job?

If you are short on time then refurbishing your lifters will be much faster than finding a set, paying, getting them shipped. Sense of accomplishment adds to the value of cleaning yours.

They not that difficult to take apart. Clean and make shur the innr piston is free to move.
You can refill them by placing one in kerosene and pumping up and down on the push rod seat.
I will agree. Years ago lifters gave problems. With modern oils that is a thing of the past.
By the way. In 1952 good oils had detergent....just not enough of the right kind.

If lifter noise is the issue with these lifters, perhaps the lifter end of the pushrods are not slotted to permit trapped air to get out of the lifter

I found an interesting post about the subject of the slot in the bottom of the pushrod in another forum:

http://www.chev235guy.blogspot.com/search/label/Understanding%20The%20235%20Hydraulic%20Lifter

I destroyed all of the intake push rods on this engine years ago when I left the gas in it too long and the residue locked up the intake valves. The replacements that I purchased were made by an aftermarket company and they have no slot in the bottom. After reading this article I am contemplating putting a goove in the bottom of the push rod myself.

FWIW (Some will disagree)

If you want to keep your hyd lifters clean and working well, pour a pint of ATF in your engine with every oil change.

In my teens, a seasoned mechanic put me on to this. I used ATF in everything I owned for over 50 years. It works and it hasn't hurt any engine. The only times I ever had noisy lifters was when I neglected to use the ATF.

To each his own - - -

y Lifters

NOISY HYDRAULIC LIFTERS ON CHEVY 235, 261 Rev. 20 Sep 2010 bas

Much has been written and experimented with to resolve this recurring problem. Apparently air is entering the lifter from the inlet side of the oil pump or other source. Different lifters, sealed pumps, sealed pick-up tubes & sealed by pass circuits have had much success but not 100%.

After trying many of the above fixes, Grant Galbraith found 100% success by providing a small vent on each of the offending locations. Locate the noisy position and remove the lifter. Wipe with lacquer thinner and tape off the hole on the side and the entire top. Using a bench grinder, grind a “flat” on the outside of the lifter between the annulus and the top of the lifter. Grind about .005″ to .007″ deep. This will provide a “vent” for any air collecting in the lifter galley so that this air does not enter the lifter and cause it to be “spongy” and noisy.

Oil pressure will only be reduced by approximately 1 PSI at IDLE (If all 12 lifters are modified)

Tom Langdon

I have never used ATF and never had a lifter problem......

In the 24 years I have been driving my 1950 235 with hydraulic lifters I have never used ATF and never had a problem with sticking. I use a brand name 10W-30 oil.

A problem can arise when trying to adjust old sticky lifters.
Firsit should be done with the engine hot (thin oil) and running at a slow idle. You loosen the adjustment till the lifter clicks. Then tighten just till it stops clicking and SLOWLY go another turn and 1/2 tighter. This will put the plunger inside the lifter in the center of the plunger travel. If the plunger sticks in the lifter body it will not come all the way up when the adjstment is loosened up. The result will be improper oil feed to the lifter and a rough idle.
The problem engines were the 1954-1958 engines with the higher lift cam and hyd. lifters. It was common for a lifter or two to loose oil and clack loudly when driving a a sustained high speed.

I'm not attempting to convert anyone, just relating 50 years of personal experience.

I had 3 cars, all nice, good, low mileage cars in which the lifters would clatter immediately after an oil change (quality, detergent oil) if I didn't add ATF, a '58 Olds super 88, a '63 Bonneville and an new '62 Chevie II 6 cyl. All 3 would clatter on startup after changing the oil and would get quiet within a minute after adding the ATF. All 3 were driven regularly and driven hard. In all 3, the lifters stayed quiet as long as the ATF was added. Why would I lie?

As I said, "To each his own".

I took an extra lifter apart tonight that had to be an aftermarket, there was no hole in the top and instead of a ball inside there was a small machined disk with a spring under it. I am going for broke on the 12 originals that I have. I'm going to disassemble them to clean them with acetone as pretty as I can and then reassemble them with Rislone. The first oil changing lesson that I was taught when I had my first car was to run 10W in the winter, 20W in the fall and spring and 30 weight in the summer, The old man did not believe in multiviscosity oils. For a little icing on the cake I was told to dump a quart of Rislone in a plastic bottle and then dump a can of STP into it and stir it like I was backing a cake. The old mans logic was that the STP just fell in one big clump in the bottom of the pan if you did not dilute it,

I Have a copy of this theory in my library but I have never had the nerve to try it, seems such a shame to take a grinder to such a shiny round metal object. Has anybody ever tried it and had success?

There is something magical about the properties of ATF fluid in an engine. Way way back in my younger days I picked up a 1971 Vega with a frozen engine, It's dam cold here in Wisconsin in the winter and I needed a winter beater to drive to work. I filled the cylinders with ATF and let it soak overnight, the next day I put a half inch breaker bar on the balancer and she turned right over. It acted like an mosquito exterminator when I drove it down the road so I used some of those magic pills that JC Whitney used to sell in the cylinders and that cut the smoking down to where it burned only a quart a week. I even had a hole predrilled in the top of the air cleaner to give it a quick shot of ether when it was really cold, never failed me once.

Gary, you are correct about ATF. Mixed 50-50 with acetone, it is the best penetrating oil available. Try it sometime.

Also, Rislone is a good product. (The fellow was trying to raise the viscosity of Rislone by mixing STP with it.)

Gary,
Yes there something magical about ATF. It is a low viscosity base oil that contains additives that improve lubricating qualities, such as anti-wear additives, rust and corrosion inhibitors, detergents, dispersants and surfactants (which protect and clean metal surfaces); kinematic viscosity and viscosity index improvers and modifiers, seal swell additives and agents (which extend the rotational speed range and temperature range of the additives' application); anti-foam additives and anti-oxidation compounds to inhibit oxidation and "boil-off" (which extends the life of the additives' application); cold-flow improvers, high-temperature thickeners, gasket conditioners, pour point depressant and petroleum dye. Many swear about MMO but in my experience has been that ATF does everything that MMO does and more. Doesn't smell as good. When ATF is diluted with acetone it is a great penetrating oil as well as transmission seal rejuvenator. The acetone boils out of the transmission quick enough that it does not deteriorate the gaskets only swells them a bit. Caution: a little acetone goes a long way! Still like PB Blaster to free rusted parts.

His benefit from adding ATF was the lifters would not leak down and click after the engine was first started. The ATF would have NO effect on this as it is natural for some oil to be forced out of the lifteer if the engine sits for a while with the valve for that lifter is open and there is a lot of pressure on the lifter. This could actually be made worse by adding ATF as the ATF would reduce the viscosity of the oil.Where ATF could help would be when the lifter plunger/body develop a varnish causing the liftes to stick and be generally noisy when the engine is hot and running. This was a common problem back in the.50's but is unheard of today if the oil is changed as it should be and itis a good detergent oil.
By the way, checked the price of ATF this morning. A Qt. of ATF cost more than a QT. of MMO.

Just don't use it alone as motor oil! One of our signal units over in Germany had changed the oil in all of their generators prior to a field exercise. When they tried to start them, they got nothing. I went over to do a quick trouble shoot and found all of them full of ATF. Once they changed it out, everything was good again.