getting the tappet back in,82 650

I havent been on here recently. I now have a replacement cylinder head, replacement cams, gasket set, acorn nuts, ready to try putting the engine together.Well, one of the tappets fell out.If a head is turned upside down it happens.Everytime it happened it seemed impossible to get one of them to fall back into the hole.You can clearly see all around the circumference of the hole there is room for the bucket to go back in there.But for some reason i can not manage to get this one to magically fall back in place.I cant reinstall that cam. The tappet/bucket is number 1 on the exhaust side.I was going to tap it with a block of wood.I did it a couple times gently but it seemed likely it wasnt going to drop in and I did not want to damage anything.I have tried grease,oil, holding my hands as steady as possible to no avail. Any tricks you know of to accomplish this? I really want to get the motor back together.

 

Wipe the oil off with a rag (no solvent).
Line it up to the bore.
Give it a slow turn, let it align itself, and it'll drop in.
The fit is about as tight a slip fit as you can make and still have room for lubricant to flow.

 

thanks.I will try that and report back kmoe

 

You definitely don't want to pound/force them in. I had the same experience when assembling my head as well, seemed like they did not want to fit and would suddenly drop in. Once in they should move very smoothly. X2 on k-moe suggestion, make sure the sides are clean and give them a little spin. I used my valve lapping tool (wooden rod with suctions cups) to hold them and insert, worked well.

 

take them all out and swap them around till you find a combination that works

did they ever land on a cement floor?

 

wiped it off, tried turning it, it will not drop in.It never hit a cement floor.I have the destroyed head that I was going to try one of its tappets.I turned that head upside down.Nothing fell out. Like jayroh said, they suddenly fell in.That happened with 3 others when 4 fell out.I fiddled forever it seemed and then all the sudden one would fall in.This one just will not.I am totally stuck on reassembling until this drops in. And its about 75 right now.Drives me crazy.

 

Drop it in the freezer overnight may shrink enough to drop in

 

Take a real careful look all around the top edge of the bucket tunnel - has something nicked the edge? If so a stiff knife will cut it back, you shouldn't need to file it.

 

And it'll expand once warm. If it isn't fiting now then freezing it will just make it stick in place once it is in the bore.


OP. You can polish the outer diameter of the bucket with crocus cloth to knock down any high spot that might be keeping it from sliding in.
The other thing to do is swap it with another bucket (one at a time) until you find the combination that allows both to fit. You likely have a bucket that's on the large side of the machining tolerance, and bore that's on the small side of the machining tolerance.

 

thanks m moe.Yeah the freeze thing didnt work.I have the ruined head to take a bucket out of. How come I can accidentally turn a cylinder head the wrong way and buckets fall out.And now I purposely turned the head upside down and nothing falls out.The joys of working on an old engine.

 

I know yall are probably tired of the bucket list.But nothing has worked.I do not know what crocus cloth is either.One of my friends said heat the head in the oven.freeze the tappet.The heat expands the head, the cold shrinks the tappet.Like maybe 175 degrees till golden brown, or what? I saw a harley guy do it one time.I wonder if the idea will work.

 

No!
Do not do this.
How about you take the non fitting bucket, try it in one or two other tunnels? This might tell you something. If it fits other follower tunnels it means the original has a high spot. This is much more likely than an oversize follower. However, the follower might have been damaged at some point, just as easy as the tunnel might have been damaged. Get a valve grinding stick (with a sucker on the end) to hold the follower.
Patience, and some trial and error will solve this for you, not ovens and freezers. The std clearance between follower and tunnel bore would be 2 to 3 thou max (guess on my part, but it will be around this value). So you should be looking for bumps, nicks or damage around this size - did I say you need some patience?
Let us all know etc..

 

that heat/ freeze thing is a sure way to ruin a head.
start by taking all the lifters out, line them up on the bench, pick a lifter at random, fit it in a hole that had a lifter in it before, slide it up/down a few times, note the drag, do another lifter, in the same hole, note the drag, do them all, lining them back up on the bench in order of drag.
take the one with the least drag and put it in the hole that you had trouble with.
if it doesn't fit, get another head, somethings wrong with that one

 

Agree with all that Polock, except the last line - I would replace it with - carefully inspect the tight tunnel, fetle the high spot that should be obviously causing the issue. A heavy fisted insertion could be enough to creat a nick on the front edge, it should be visible.

 

thanks for all the good advice.polock I dont need a different head.the one I bought looks great.All the tappets were in place,no problem.Then the one in question fell out when i had turned the head upside down with no cam in place so i know it will go in or out of there.It looks so simple, but it just isnt happening. For just trial sake i took a tappet out of the ruined head and tried getting it in the hole.Same problem.As is pointed out probably a mere thusandth of an inch leeway.I will keep trying.Nicks or burrs are not seen, and the fact it was in the hole before tells me it is just me and my bad luck at this point.The weather is perfect.Probably in 4 hours i could get it reassembled, depending on how bad the crossover exhaust pipe is and be riding it.