No Oil To Lifters

[Free88]

Installed a rebuilt 400 small block in an 81 Chevy C10. Engine fired up and has oil pressure. Problem, no oil to lifters. Engine ran fine in another truck before swap. Started engine and a loud tick. Pulled the oil filter and PCV valve and found that there was no oil to the lifters. Would this hurt the motor? Ran for maybe 3 minutes in short intervals before we found the problem. Had valve covers on so that is why we did not see that the valves were not oiling. Thanks

[piecesparts]

Makes you wonder if this motor was put together right? If all you did was start the motor and found the oiling was not working, then I would say that there is no damage, However, is this the first start for the engine? If so, then very possibly OK. Did you by chance spin up the oil system BEFORE the install? I like to put a priming tool on a new motor, so that there is oil through out the motor before I start them the first time. I am guessing by your statement about not pulling the valve covers, you may not have. If you have oil pressure indicated, then the oil filter is full and the oil galleys should be full or filling. The tick tells me that you have a lifter that is not pumped up and the lack of oil may be due to the fact that they all are not primed and pumped up. So, how did you decide that the lifters were NOT getting oil? Pulling the PVC is not a good way to see the push rods, and the oil filter should be full as I stated before.

[Free88]

Problem solved. The motor was rebuilt a while ago and fired up occasionally. It sat for a while and when the transfer was done the lifters must have bled down and we had to prime them again. We removed the valve covers and coated everything with oil. After readjusting the valves, we had good oil flow. The tick came a bent cover that goes over the harmonic balancer and was rubbing on the timing indicator. Engine runs great. Just a small detail that we overlooked. Knew definately that it was not valve train when we backed off the first lifter and learn that very distinctive wrap sound. After adjusting all lifters engine sounds great. Thanks.