Even water in the oil can cause lifter failure. There are needle bearings in your lifters.

I don't seem to be able to get the lifter out with a magnet. I seems to be really stuck in there. Does anyone have a diagram of the heads and how the lifters fit ? I've seen the one from Chiltons manual which is pretty much worthless.

I don't know what angle or detail you need. Perhaps this will help?

Yeah. thats pretty good. Should the lifters just pull out from the top?

Yeah, they should. This is all that the instructions have to say about that part.

Remove the rocker arms, pushrods, and the pedestals.
Remove the valve guide retainer bolts.
Remove the valve guide retainer.
Remove the valve lifter guides.
Remove the valve lifters.

Sometimes, if there is a lot of varnish in the lifter bore, you may have to grab the lifter with a set of pliers and jerk them up and down until they pop out.

Ok. Its been a while but I finally got more time to get the lifter out.

Just in case you guys are interested, heres what the broken lifter looks like. The top seat for the rod is broken:


There is coolant everywhere in the top of the engine...no good. Does this for sure come from the upper plastic intake manifold / plenumn? I can't see any damange or cracks anywhere...[/img]

I expect to find a couple of those in my own engine.

Can you please put your year and model in your signature?

Sorry about that. Here'* my updated profile...