Land Rover tappet removal

     If I had hair I'd probably pulled it all out by now....

As the cam turns a steel roller rides on the lobe, the roller pushes the brass tappet up in the guide and the pushrod sits on the seat on top of the tappet. The pushrod is connected to the adjusting screw in the rocker arm. When the lobe goes up, the roller pushes the tappet-pushes the pushrod-pushes the adjuster screw all up. This forces the rocker arm to pivot and push the valve open.

    Anything wrong in the sequence and there is a loss of power and bad timing.

    I tried to get my brass tappet out by the usual method of pulling on it with a wire. Nothing moved. So I wound up drilling out the oil hole down thru the tappet body to the roller. I did it in careful stages with grease on the bit and pulled the bit out often to clean out the grease and swarf with Qtips. I went in 1 drill size increments and it took me 3 hours to drill out the body. When I broke thru one side of the body I used a greasy Dremel tool to cut thru the other side. Then using needle nose pliers I could pull out the tappet. The roller was then removed with a magnet.

     In the next pic you can see the remains of the brass tappet and the roller. Just remember that about 5/8's of an inch is missing from the center of the tappet. The roller should be round..........

    Next up was to remove the guide. If it was free it should have come out when I pulled on the tappet with the wire. A look with the borescope showed the slide part had been hammered by the roller/tappet and probably stuck to the cylinder wall. The book says to remove stuck guides with an extractor tool but I couldn't find any online, just pdf files saying to use one....

    I resorted to going to Andy's Auto Supply and renting a slide hammer that would do the job. But first I had to make an end for the puller. I used a 1/2x 3/16x 1 3/8 flat stock with a 1/4-20 hole in the middle. The slide hammer has a 1/4-20 threaded bit on the end.

 

 

You can see the damage to the #8 guide as compared to the #7 one. Will be replacing all the guides, rollers and tappets. Need to look closely at the cam when all the guides are out. Then clean out the engine and drop the oil pan and clean it out and change the oil filter. Then change the oil/filter again after a short run about.