3400 oiling question

[stinky817]

Hello all.

I just replaced the lower intake manifold gaskets in an 02 pontiac Montana. Went to start the car and there was a whole bunch of valve chatter. Pulled off the front valve cover and saw that the upper part of thr engine wasn't getting any oil. Pulled the lower back off of it to make sure the gaskets weren't pushing the push rods off to the side or anything along those lines, and everything looks good there. Pulled the cover off of the oil pump drive and rotated the drive, and it's definitely pumping oil... I'm just not sure why I'm not getting any oil to the top. Any ideas/suggestions?

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[bszopi]

I wouldn't expect to see oil splashing around, so are you sure there isn't another problem? Did you make sure the pushrods went back in their proper order? Did you torque the rockers down properly?

Oh yeah, and welcome to the forums!

[stinky817]

I didn't expect to see oil splashing around either, but I cleaned the oil out of the rockers and they never filled back up.

The only way that the pushrods could have been put in incorrectly is if someone moved them around in my cardboard box (cut a slit and slide it into the slit) but I don't think any of my co-workers are that big of a$$holes.... As for the torque, yes. that was done according to mitchell... Right now I'm soaking the lifters, just to make sure...

[stinky817]

Ok, so I narrowed down the problem.. Turns out something happened to the lifters.. Don't know why, but only two of them are feeding ANY oil into the pushrods.. The weird thing is the car didn't have any valve noise when it came in.. I guess just relieving the tension from them and re applying the pressure was all they needed... oh well. Such is life sometimes

[bszopi]

Weird. But at least it is solved.

[stinky817]

Weird. But at least it is solved.

Yeah. I thought it weird as well... One of the guys in the shop has been doing this type of thing for 18 years, and he said that he's only ever seen a similar problem once. Someone did gaskets and the lifters were causing a bunch of noise (I didn't ask details.. Was a little involved in something else) but, stranger things have happened. thanks for your help

[3400-95-Modified]

If you changed the gaskets due to failure then the lifters had injested oil/coolant mix and gummed them all up. I had this happen to my ex's Malibu, thing tapped badly on startup, but once it ran a few seconds it went away... I also had a lower intake on a 4.3 Jimmy engine leak and clog the lifters on that. Anytime started cold it would tap like a bastard, once warm it would go away. Changing out the lifters fixed that issue.