i am wondering what would cause the dogbone in the lifter valley to be bent upwards? the pushrod was snot bent at all. the rest of the dogbone fingers were fine, just the very front passenger one was bent up. does anyone have any ideas?? just trying to get some ideas before i pull the engine/heads....

 

Are you talking about the lifter retainer or the spider looking thing?

 

spider thing.

 

I have never seen on of those bent although I change them if eng. has over 50,000mi..
I would think they would break before they would bend since they are spring steel, that's a new one to me.

 

I have seen one bend. It had no cause for the bend so I assumed it was bent on install from the plant. Unless you have a failure in the valve train you wouldn't have noticed it was bent anyway.

 

new one to me too. i had some valvetrain noise and when i pulled the intake, i noticed the spider bent up, the retainer was a bit banged up, and the lifter had spun in the bore. oddly though, the pushrod was not bent. i just went out and looked at the intake port of my head and it seems like the valve guide is cracked and looks pushed upwards a bit.

 

Did it scar the cam?

 

oh yeah...cam is done for. i'm just really bummed that the valve guide is cracked. i gotta send it in for more headwork now.

 

Hey.... at least you will have new guides. Might as well get bronze.

 

my spider lifted up no. 3 intake arm , the lifter spun in the bore, took out my cam's surface on no.3 intake. No other real damage.
got a new cam, ordered some ls7 lifters, replaced the spider, cleaned out any metal shavings in the lifter valley, changed oil and filters a little excessively for a couple of thousand miles and have been good for over a year. I am LUCKY

 

the bad thing is i just had those guides/liners replaced with bronze ones when i put the heads on. is there a limit how many times you can put guides in?