when you install lifters in a mazda B2200 do you need to let them soak in oil before you install them?
If they are hydraulic lifters…YES. It can only help you. All Hydro lifters I have seen like a nice little soak b4 install…it gets them pre “pumped up” for you.
It’s a good idea to soak them for a while before you install them. Another good idea is to prelube the engine before you start it, if that is possible on the engine you are working on. This is done by using an electric drill to drive the oil pump until oil is flowing from the pushrods. That will help “pump up” the lifters as well. Many people make a prelube tool out of an old distributor shaft.
I don’t believe that the oil pump on that engine can be spun with a drill. And the engine is notorious for lifter noise which often seems to be caused by restrictions in the oil passages.
If they are hydraulic lifters, you may have to do more that soak them in oil. Its been awhile since I put a new lifter in an engine, they seem to be better made these days, but when I did, I had to emerse the lifter in oil, flat side down. Then I’d take an old screwdriver with the end cut off and the shank rounded like the end of the pushrod and push down on the plunger part of the lifter several times until all the air is expelled.
Now this was for an OHV engine (cam in block). Now with today’s OHC engines with the lifters built into the rockers, I’m not sure how that would be done, or if it is even necessary.
I agree with keith, that an attempt to get oil in new lifters as described will partially or completely fill them with oil. It has not, however, been necessary to do this with my VW lifters. Just put the engine together, start it and the oil pressure will fill them sooner and for some later. Soaking the lifters in oil will, in my estimation, do nothing to partially fill them with oil. Lifter oil passages have very small orifices and any significant amount of oil will not pass through them without pressure; for sure not through the internal piston’s spring loaded check valve.