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My experience with EA82 HVLA's is varied and still not know their basics.

I have had water in a hydraulic lifter after a welch plug in EA81 import head leaked water into sump. That took ten km on 20W50 to sort out

Have had L wagon years ago that deveolped a tick as it went up for sale.That tick would go once a light load was put on it with clutch and in gear, gone while driving. May have come on coasting, and defo at idle. A tune-up oil additive fixed it after about 500km. Car was then sold to a mechanic who was pleased with its condition.

I've been lucky to have quiet lifters too. Also fitted new lifter$ that required a good 15km drive before they would actually go quiet with 15W40 oil. Also had other lifters that were known to be quiet, pulled out, refitted, noisy and same sort of 15km drive to get them sorted.

This experience makes me think to bleed them on a bench by hand. as suggested in manuals ......

My latest acqusition was said to be no lifter noise until it went to workshop for investigation and came out noisy. Investigation was head gasket gone due to water contaminated oil - at least in PCV system and filler tube. Dagnosing mech thought there was oil in sump oil too , but when I got it , nope, was only 2 litres of well used black engine oil.

I was thinking lfters had water in them causing shittick until I found no water in sump oil at that time and only two litres of engine oil. Was then thinking oil level contributed to the HVLA tick.

NOW...I have got the HVLA's out - some are relatively stiff to push the top down into itself. Others are so soft to press in and won't bleed or pump up by hand in a little tub of oil and a thumb pressing until it is worn out.

New ones...should be stiff with no oil? Or only stiff with oil ? New ones sold primed? Wish I asked self when I fitted newies before....

Anyone know? Experience ?

thanks

I can't answer your questions as such other than to give you my own experience with my EA82turbo and as I understand the problem is quite widespread and particular to the EA82. My outcome is on these posts somewhere but started when the car was decellerating down a hill under engine braking and seemed to go away when the engine was accelerating under load. Everyone appears to have their own remedy for the condition and no doubt varying degrees of success would probably depend on individual conditions and degrees of wear.

I finally after much tearing of hair, found that the best solution for my car has been:-

Run an engine flush through the car such as wynns or nulon and let the car run for about 30mins, get nice and hot then drop engine oil. Oil comes out like hot honey as it cleans (apparently) all engine oil galleries etc.

Fit a genuine subaru oil filter for that engine and refill with caterpillar diesel engine oil. Add one small bottle of STP engine oil treatment. Also I took the opportunity to fit new timing belts and idlers and while I was in there, put a new oil kit through the oil pump..(not hard to do just time consuming). I also fitted an electronic oil pressure gauge to monitor my oil pressure at all times.

I finally seem to have got on top of the problem but it has come back slightly at times but goes very quickly. Add a bit more STP or I have a large bottle of morleys oil treatment here which is just real thick stuff like STP and I have added a little of that to help quiten it at times. But all in all the problem hasn't been about for quite some time. This remedy won't work for all of course and some will pooh pooh the diesel oil install. But anyhow, that's where I'm at. If it were to reappear and beat me, then the engine will get tossed and probably go EJ. More so because I am not prepared to spend anymore time or money with this engine on a problem that is entrenched and stubborn.

Cheers

I had a tick in my ej22 in my lib when I first got it. I pulled the HLAs out and tested and cleaned them. They should not compress when primed with oil. You should be able to release the check valve in the base by pushing it in, and while holding it in pump the old oil out. I then flushed them through with petrol, and then primed them with fresh oil. I also blew out the galleries in the rocker arms with compressed air. I think I had three or four that were a bit dodgy before I flushed them, but ended up only having to replace one. Lucky, as they're expensive little buggers. I think I had to pay $55 or so for one.

Hope this applies to the EA as well

I should add that I am curious as to how Discos rebuilder opened a few up and was able to reuse. I have opened the odd one and it resembled a can opener had attacked it so not being fit for reuse:(

The insides of the rocker room were a light browny gold look, just a light film - no serious black crud or carbon junk like some long abused engines.

I have been a fan of Diesel grade oils for a particular engine that I serviced for 200,000km and seven years later it is still a happy car. I may consider going Diesel grade again for my EA82T.

I might also try a spray or soak f CRC and a blow on the funny lifters and see what happens to them and try sewing machine oil to pump them.

Does anyone know of somewhere in Australia that recos HVLA's ?

ONly place I know of is Mizpah in USA

Most will say buy new , I'll ask my Rally spanner what he did but I doubt he'll remember . I think he said something about being crimped together but I never saw them apart .

Mitsibushis WSM for the 4G63T Evo engines has an interesting service proceedure . They get you to set up three containers with clean diesel fuel in them . You go through a three stage process of cleaning each one and poke some fine wire down through the oil hole to unseat the spring loaded ball so you can flush them . They get you to assemble the engine with diesel fuel still in them so that the engine can find its own "hydraulic height" fairly quickly .
I'm not sure what you can do with a flat engine considering that these Suby rocker pivots are sitting "sideways" so to speak .

I'm just looking at Subies factory WSM which has a cross section diagram of these hydraulic lash adjusters . The oil holes into the things are in the sides of the outer body and aren't real big .
Anyway in the WSM Subaru say with these units out push them in and out quickly and if the pivot depresses more than 1/2mm (20 thou) do this again submerged in a contauner of oil . If the plunger depresses more than 1/2mm after repeating this process replace the HLA .

I think I'd be cleaning them in some solvent like brake cleaner or carby cleaner and working it in until no crud came out .
If I had the heads off I'd be blowing the oil galleries out to make sure they are clean and clear as well .

I'm pretty sure Subaru only specifies xxW40 engine oils for EA82's and most diesel oils tend to be some kind of 40 weight . They are usually high detergent high ZDDP (Zinc Dyalkyldithiophosphate) oil which means anti wear additives because diesels make lots of torque without revs so lots of high bearing loads .
The jury is out on running high detergent oils in old engines because cleaning any crud out is sometimes thought to make old oil seals and rings pass oil .
I have done it at times and not had issues but I can't speak for all cases .

If it were me I'd try it if all else failed but don't come back to me saying your engine is worse after taking my gut feeling , you have to accept responsibility for your own actions .

Your calls , cheers A .

I should have added that my EA82T is in a brumby and it is impossible to to access the lash adjusters in situ because of clearance issues so have been unable to physically service them. Also I have had previous experience with diesel oils in perol engines and only went this way because the engine in my brumby was in good condition and not long out of a rebuild I suspect. I agree with discopotato that this solution would be most unwise on an old gunky engine because of the high detergent properties of the oil and possible clogging of oil galleries etc.

And should add it ain't a bad idea to add a tive that claims it softens oil seals to regain their sealing properties if they aren't worn. I am going to fit known quiet units and tinker with these old 170,000 km units another day.

Soon to pull engine out and fit new sump pan gasket as well so will reduce gunk down there

I think part of the problem of these HVLAs is that if they don't slot into their seat in the head snugly you're already losing out on oil pressure to the unit. That along with the fact that if the individual HVLA has been worn due to lack of oil pressure over time resulting in a wider opening that the top (when sitting on the bench) of the HVLA, thus more loss of oil pressure.

I say this as I had some solid lifters made up using the bottom of the old HVLAs - sent some nuts into a machine shop with one of the gutted HVLA bottoms. When I went to install the nuts that were all machined to this one particular unit I found that some HVLAs were either too tight to fit the nuts into (hammering required) or that they slotted straight in with a tiny bit of slop.

The other issue here is the little spring in side them. If this fatigues, which I'm sure it would, then you're already missing out on some pressure there. Maybe if you could carefully remove that top cap you could replace all the springs in the HVLA's to something that's rated higher, much like you do with valve springs. Re-pressing that cap back on would be the interesting part.

Cheers

Bennie

Like any hydraulic valvetrain, they need the correct "lifter preload".