Hydraulic or Solid lifters...>>>

[Guest Moondoggy]

To those with greater knowledge then I, how can I tell whether the attached picture of my valves are hydraulic or solid lifters, ignoring the year and transmission type.

Thanks Adam

[The Old Guy]

They use the same push rods and rocker arms for both, so you can't tell from this area. If they are noisy and you can put a feeler in between the valve and rocker ,they are probably solid lifters.

[Aaron65]

Hydraulic lifter cars have oil passages in the ball studs that the solid lifter cars don't have...they have a horizontal passage to feed the lifters. You could pull one out to check...if the car has a stick, it's probably got solids. Dynaflows had Hydraulics.

[Guest Howard Purvis]

As Aaron states, the ball studs are different. The valve springs, push rods, rocker arms,

camshaft and oil filter are as well. Hydraulic lifters appeared first in 1948 on series 70 cars equipped with Dynaflow beginning with engine number 5192694. Series 70 engines with Dynaflow up to engine number 5192693 had mechanical lifters.

These things are not easy to see. But other differences are: Hydraulic lifter engines had red lettering on the decals on the valve cover; those with mechanical lifters are lettered in black. And a small sticker randomly placed on the top of the valve cover reads, "This Engine Equipped With Hydraulic Lifters." Finally, stickers on the oil filter specify different filter cartridges for each system. Hydraulic lifter engines require AC 127; mechanical lifter engines take 115.

[Guest Moondoggy]

Thanks for that, being an Australian Right Hand Drive delivered car there are a few quirky differences to US cars, being a 49 Super manual I would naturally assume solid however, I cannot put a feeler gauge between gauge and rocker and the other identifying attributes I cannot verify (My father has another 49 Super manual Aussie delivered and that has hydraulic lifters, I suspect Buick may have sent out hydraulic lifters to AUS and were not as strict with specs).

I do have a valve that is a little "jumpy" and noisy and thought I may have been able to adjust myself, but I might get my mechanic to look down the track.

One thing I shall do tomorow is check engine number against above info from Howard.

Thanks for assistance. Adam

[Guest Howard Purvis]

Adam,

Maybe I should have added that all '49 50 and 70 series cars had hydraulic lifters. The 40 series - carryovers from 1948 - had mechanical lifters.

Howard

[Guest Straight eight]

Howard, our 48 Roadmaster was an early model purchased new,and the engine had light blue letters, certainly not black or red

Edited March 17, 2010 by Straight eight (see edit history)