Lifter Dropped..... HELP please

[99silveradodude]

So i was doing my cam swap and well one of the lifters fell, yes i used some wood dowels to hold up the lifters and yes i spun the cam, i took no chances, and now im kind of in a hard place. i have to pull the intake heads and maybe the oil pan. whos got the good write up on the heads and intake. i checked the "search" function but had a hard time finding anything really helpful, i need any help right now. and where did my lifter fall, is it in the pan or can it be lodged somewhere in the engine. thanks again for all the help. i guess i get to learn more about LS engines than i thought.

[danger_ranger83]

it could be ontop of the crank and it wont be in the pan if it made it past the crank itll be on top of the windage tray

[oleshifty]

i'm gettin ready to do a cam swap myself....does anyone now HOW it fell if he had the dowels in? I thought that blocked the passage...

[danger_ranger83]

well .....he could have had a dowel rod that was too small and just got lucky with the rest or it could be the back lifter and he didnt have the rod pushed all the way back

[zeake]

in for the results. Hopefully it wont be bad

[farmtruc]

I guess we've always been lucky, never used dowels during an install, we had to use pen magnets to hold up a few loose ones.
Before you pull the cam, keep the pushrods in place, spin the cam several times, none of the pushrods should move again after a full rotation of the cam, if any do then that lifter needs a pen magnet.
Also, swap the cam as fast as possible, don't let the lifters sit for a long period of time.

You might be able to pull the oil pan, hopefully, which is no biggy.

[Mangled03gmc]

I would first drop the pan, like stated you might have got lucky. If you need info, go to ls1howto.com Alot of good info there for sure.. Good luck

[DBRODS]

I would try the pen magnet first to see if you can fish it back up. Very doubtful but it can happen. More than likely it didnt fall all the way down. I would pull the head first before the pan and see if its still in the top of the engine.. Either way the head has to come off eventually so this might save you from pulling botttom end apart.

[collin]

I dropped one once doing a cam swap on a 2001 Camaro SS. I was able to drop the oil pan just a bit to give about an inch of clearance and fish around with a flexible pen magnet and got the lifter out. Also if you have a friend with a boroscope you can probably find the location of the lifter to avoid a long time searching with the magnet.

[banker099]

I guess we've always been lucky, never used dowels during an install, we had to use pen magnets to hold up a few loose ones.
Before you pull the cam, keep the pushrods in place, spin the cam several times, none of the pushrods should move again after a full rotation of the cam, if any do then that lifter needs a pen magnet.
Also, swap the cam as fast as possible, don't let the lifters sit for a long period of time.

You might be able to pull the oil pan, hopefully, which is no biggy.

thats the way ive done it too...everyone asks me all the time why i have 16 pen magnets on my lift posts...lol

and to the OP if it were me i would pull the engine, but ive got to where i can pull one in like 2 hours....lol