[Fosheezy]

New to the group and need some advice. I recently purchased a 07 for a good price. Reason being, it ate a lifter. I got my hands on a donor motor with 130k on it. My plans are to replace the lifters and gaskets before I drop this in. So my question is if I'm just removing the heads for the lifter replacement and putting them back on. Can I still drop the 6.4 rods in without resurfacing the heads. Or am I good?

 

[6riders]

New to the group and need some advice. I recently purchased a 07 for a good price. Reason being, it ate a lifter. I got my hands on a donor motor with 130k on it. My plans are to replace the lifters and gaskets before I drop this in. So my question is if I'm just removing the heads for the lifter replacement and putting them back on. Can I still drop the 6.4 rods in without resurfacing the heads. Or am I good?

Is the motor studded? If not, do that, the heads are off, take care of business. Any time the heads are off, it's a good idea to send them to a machine shop. The stock heads are know to crack. If you don't have them surfaced, your likely to blow the head gaskets. Do you want to go through this again because you're trying to save a few bucks?

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[Fosheezy]

Thanks for the reply 6riders. I didn't word my question correctly. Its not about saving money. Its more of a question of clarity. I have read so many places that for recommends not to touch 6.0 and 6.4 heads at all. The donor motor was a good running motor that I pulled. My concern is, will dropping in the 6.4 rods cause any problems.

 

[TooManyToys]

You can drop in pushrods without removing the heads by using the OTC tool that goes into the injector hole and pushes down on the valve bridge.

According to Geoff Bardal, who owns Colt Cams, there's no reason to drop in 6.4L pushrods into a 6.0L The shorter pushrods were needed because the initial batch of 6.4L motors used the 6.0L original length pushrods and were having valvetrain issues, not the 6.0L. The camshaft centerline is higher in the 6.4L motor, closer to the heads. International stopped selling the original length 6.0L pushrods to prevent any later cross motor issues.

I've measured the lifter travel; there doesn't seem to be any bottoming issues. If the 6.0L had an issue with pushrod length, the motor would have a history of burned exhaust valves and bent valvetrain. Yet we have trucks over 200k miles, none of this.

Any motor can have bent pushrods if the motor sits and the valve stems and guides rust up, which does happen with the 6.0L. Lifter's "pump up" because the slow retracting valves provide clearance for the plungers to take up the false slack.

Eating a lifter has more to do with poor oil and coolant maintenance; often a motor that has had a clogged oil cooler in it's past. The lifter bearings get damaged or the cam lobes from the higher surface pressures from inadequate lubrication IMO. When disassembling well-used lifters, I've found fretting of the needle bearing surfaces, and in older motors pitting on the cam lobe surface where the hardened surface is popping off.

But even trucks with good maintenance can have a lifter/lobe failure, typically in the 250k mile range. It's a highly stressed valvetrain.