[LPete]

Lifters are on the opposite side of the valves on the rocker...so a longer lifter should mean a shorter valve travel stroke - thus no compression when "closed".
No pushrods in this engine?

This is a different animal. You should find a picture of the whole setup. The rocker arm has a roller that rides on the cam.

 

[jeffprien1]

I really think you would’ve heard a racket while turning it over if the valves actually made contact with the Pistons. I think you’re gonna be OK.

 

[Sienile]

Oops, I did get that mixed up. Taller lifters are definitely more potentially destructive than shorter ones. Hopefully it just held them off the seats without touching the piston. Only way to know is to fire it up with the right ones.

Now I didn't turn the engine, but when experimenting with parts from a 3rd gen Pentastar, I installed the exhaust rockers in all positions and went to turn the engine by hand and it barely moved before contact. The fulcrum of those rockers is higher than gen 1&2 rockers, which basically did the same thing but much further than your lifters would have. When I went to take them out I looked at the valves as they came up. Ones that were supposed to be shut had about 4-6mm of pre-load. I should have caught that on install (rushing in freezing cold), but thankfully I didn't skip the hand crank and caught it there. Had I actually used the starter, I would have wrecked everything.

 

[damianremodeling]

I followed Motor City Mechanic's directions, which included rotating the cams to a specific position aligned with timing marks, using blocks to lock the sprockets in place, and then wedges to release the chain tensioners. I removed the cams from the cam phasers and only worked on one cam at a time. I soaked the lifters and rocker arms for about 5 minutes (and stirred w/ a screwdriver until I didn't see any more bubbles) before installing.

I used a paint marker on the cam phasers, top chain link, and then the first cam cap for alignment. I double checked before putting the valve covers back on that all the rockers were properly seated on both the lifters and valves. I can turn the motor by hand on the crank, and it spins the motor when I turn the key. If any of these were off, would it have the symptoms I'm describing?

Frankly with a job that requires quite a lot of things being disconnected it's hard to say where you could have made a mistake.....
I did just do the same on my 2014 caravan. Used same 3 part video from motor city mechanic- it's very detailed video. Replaced 4 camshaft and all rockers/ lifters.
Started up engine and built oil pressure in 2 seconds.
Maybe you forgot to connect a sensor somewhere? I would imagine that will light up a code....
If you didn't put the wrong camshaft in the wrong place and you marked wheel and chain positions....no reason not to start.
Sorry I couldn't be helpful.

 

[damianremodeling]

Thank you! I fought with that decision too. I've done some work on this motor before, but never to the valvetrain. Good luck with your decision. I was kinda rushed into this. I took the van in for an oil change and they cracked the oil cooler and denied any fault. It was literally spewing oil all over so I had to either get it fixed, or fix it myself. The dealer wanted over $1k for the oil cooler job so I was tearing in to do that myself (that's a relatively easy job) and figured since I was tearing in already, might as well get rid of that tick and do that work myself too. I ordered up all the parts and dove in. I found one of the exhaust rockers on the right bank that was completely shot so I'm confident that was the tick I had, but with re-assembly, I'm just hoping I didn't screw something up that I can't easily fix myself. I replaced all 24 rockers/lifters and took my time over a couple days. I'm an engineer, but not a mechanic. I wrote out torque specs/order, and any time I second guessed anything, I'd stop and investigate. The two hardest part of the job for me (aside from the current non-working state of things) was getting tension released properly on the right bank. The tool I bought didn't seem to want to give me much play on that chain and the intake cam was a little difficult to get in and out. I took my time, and things seemed good when I put it back together, but something is definitely wrong. I am leaning toward some sort of compression problem based on the advice here, symptoms themselves, and watching a couple other videos for similar sounds to the way it's cranking. It sounds so "loose" I thought the starter solenoid wasn't actually engaging the motor, but I can see the serpentine belt (and pulleys) move when it cranks, it just sounds so "free" like the motor isn't even doing anything so maybe some valves are stuck open, but it's an interference motor, so I don't know what exactly could be going on.

I'll report back what I find out, but I already ordered another valve cover gasket set and will tear back in this weekend to see if I can figure anything out. The local shop wanted $2900 to do this job, so I'm fine spending another $50 on the mahle gasket set and tearing back in for now. I was about $600 in, for quality replacement parts (mopar oil cooler (and new sensors), mahle gaskets, melling rockers/lifters, $20 chinese cam/timing blocks from amazon) and now an additional $42 on another gasket set, and for the heck of it I bought a OTC compression tester that will be here tomorrow to add to my toolbox. Another reason I'm willing to keep fighting this is I bought a second vehicle with this motor recently, so I'm considering any learnings I get as an investment.

You dont have to buy new valve cover gaskets - yours are unused. That little bit of silicone will come out and reuse the gasket

 

[damianremodeling]

I had the wife crank the engine while looking at the serp belt today, which spun, and I didn't have her crank it very long, but I didn't smell any fuel. How long would I need to attempt cranking to hear that? I looked at some information on the TIPM and fuel problem, seems somewhat common and there's a couple easy ways to test that the relay/pump are at least getting/sending power when they should, which I'll do this weekend, too. The good news is if that's the problem, (which I doubt, since it doesn't "chug" when cranking, just sounds like it's free-spinning) it can be fixed for way less than the $1200 a TIPM costs.

To " smell" gasoline while cranking....remove 1 spark plug and see if fuel smell comes out of the hole when cranking. Don't burn yourself!!!! Cut off spark plugs wires.
I imagine it would be hard smelling fuel otherwise....unless you crank forever and soak engine and catalytic converter completely.....which is no good.

 

[LPete]

Frankly with a job that requires quite a lot of things being disconnected it's hard to say where you could have made a mistake.....
I did just do the same on my 2014 caravan. Used same 3 part video from motor city mechanic- it's very detailed video. Replaced 4 camshaft and all rockers/ lifters.
Started up engine and built oil pressure in 2 seconds.
Maybe you forgot to connect a sensor somewhere? I would imagine that will light up a code....
If you didn't put the wrong camshaft in the wrong place and you marked wheel and chain positions....no reason not to start.
Sorry I couldn't be helpful.

He received the wrong lifters and installed them without noticing they were a bit longer. That’s why no compression.

 

[damianremodeling]

He received the wrong lifters and installed them without noticing they were a bit longer. That’s why no compression.

Ohhh....jeez....so valves are partially open at all or odd times ? That's horribly annoying. To do the same job twice....

Wouldn't the wrong lifters look visually " taller " ? He didn't compare to old ones?

 

[jeffprien1]

Ohhh....jeez....so valves are partially open at all or odd times ? That's horribly annoying. To do the same job twice....

Wouldn't the wrong lifters look visually " taller " ? He didn't compare to old ones?

Might help you understand if you read the whole thread.

 

[Materdaddy]

Updates and observations time! First, I got the right lifters, went through the whole job again, and it fired right up! It had a ton of codes for Network/Chassis/O2 sensor rich/cam solenoids/etc. all probably from when I had them disconnected doing the compression check. I was able to clear them with my cheap bluetooth scanner and the Torque app, but a handful remained. They all cleared after a hot/cold cycle, so no CEL currently, yay!

Regarding the out-of-phase timing. My cams have one key hole and cam phasers only have one pin. I think there'd be no way to get the timing off from that alone. The only way would be if the chain moved sprokets on the phaser but I used the tools to keep the phasers/chain all locked in place.

Another observation is with the incorrect lifters. I think I previously mentioned that I soaked them, and took all old ones out (per cam) set aside, and then put the new ones that were soaking in. When I started, they looked enough the same, and are the same diameter which is why I didn't notice. When going through with the correct ones, I noticed that there were two different "styles" of the new ones. They were all Melling 7524, but I had originally noticed that the little boxes they shipped in had two different fonts. One was bold (date code April 2022) and one was not (date code August 2022). The ones from April look very similar to the ones I removed and were 18 of the 24 lifters, so I think I stopped paying attention and never looked at if there were differences. From left to right: 7524 April 2022, 7524 August 2022, original Mopar lifter. When sitting, it's obvious tot see the wrong ones are taller, but I never sat them beside one another at first.

Thanks to everybody who helped with ideas, guidance, problems, and solutions! I appreciate the help of everybody here!

 

[LPete]

So glad you got it running! What a relief! Nice work.

 

[damianremodeling]

Related to this type of repair - when I opened my covers I found that the bolts under the camshaft ( they cap off the oil highways I guess😀) were loose. One was finger tight the other almost falling off as you see in the picture..... Maybe that's the reason rockers got screwed😀😀😀 surprising thou only 130k miles

 

[Materdaddy]

Related to this type of repair - when I opened my covers I found that the bolts under the camshaft ( they cap off the oil highways I guess😀) were loose. One was finger tight the other almost falling off as you see in the picture..... Maybe that's the reason rockers got screwed😀😀😀 surprising thou only 130k miles

That's crazy. Glad you caught that before anything worse happened!

 

[damianremodeling]

That's crazy. Glad you caught that before anything worse happened!

Frankly " lucky" design feature ...the "wheels" in the end of the camshaft ( the chain wheels) are just big enough that the heads of those bolts can't clear out to fall down in the chains of the engine. The head of one of the bolts was quite " ground" from rubbing in the wheel.

 

[Sienile]

Updates and observations time! First, I got the right lifters, went through the whole job again, and it fired right up!
...

Great. Now we know a little too much lifter isn't a killer.

Related to this type of repair - when I opened my covers I found that the bolts under the camshaft ( they cap off the oil highways I guess😀) were loose. One was finger tight the other almost falling off as you see in the picture..... Maybe that's the reason rockers got screwed😀😀😀 surprising thou only 130k miles

That's actually pretty common to find when doing rockers. Those are the oil gallery plugs for the lifters and can definitely cause low oil pressure to the lifters and rockers.

 

[damianremodeling]

Great. Now we know a little too much lifter isn't a killer.


That's actually pretty common to find when doing rockers. Those are the oil gallery plugs for the lifters and can definitely cause low oil pressure to the lifters and rockers.

I didn't know it's called " oil gallery plugs" , I'm an amateur. But even I can think of at least 3 ways to close of that opening so it will not open by itself. Not a regular bolt with a coarse thread in the end of highly lubricated pipe with frequent temperature changes and vibrations !!!!
Come on Dodge designers ! 😀 Dumb idea😀

 

[jeffprien1]

Been following this from the beginning! I knew it would start right up!!

 

[donchicago48]

I have heard of hydraulic lifters not bleeding down and holding valves open. A compression test would rule that in or out.

 

[Sienile]

He figured it out. He was sent the wrong lifters, which were holding the valves open. Right ones fixed it.

 

[paul1234]

I just got done replacing all of the rocker arms and lifters on my 2015 and it won't start. I followed a few online guides, torqued everything to spec, etc. and got everything back together late last night, and it won't start. I hear the fuel pump turn on when I put the key in the ignition, and when I turn they key I hear the starter engage and it spins the motor, but it's like there's no compression or something. The motor just spins but doesn't even "chug" like it's trying to fire. There are no codes being thrown when attempting to start or anything. I've done a visual inspection of what I can see of harnesses and everything seems to be plugged in. I've checked the 4 cam phasers, 2 camshaft position sensors, ignition coils (that I can see), and injectors (that I can see), map, maf, throttle body, oil pressure, oil temperature and all of those appear to be plugged in and fully seated. Any other things anybody suggests I check before I start taking off the upper intake manifold (again) for a better look?

I had the same problem. The problem was the rocker arms where too big CM and they where keeping the valves opened and no compression... I ordered parts from ebay. I installed back all the old parts and car started rigth up. Ended only replacing the 3 rokers arms and on one cam from dealer parts. not after market.