Who can give me a good detailed technical description of exactly what lifter bleed down is? What exactly is bleeding down? What causes it? Can it cause problems like wear on the push rods?

Reason I ask, I am getting lifter noise on cold starts and it last about 5 minutes (til the engine warms up), dealer told me lifters are bleeding down, not a big deal. I don't believe it. If they were supposed to do that they would have done it the first day I got the bike, this started about 2k miles ago.

2009 Ultra w/ 20K miles.

 

our harleys have hydraulic lifters. to make it simple so i can understand it and hopefully you can too, a hydraulic lifter is basically a plunger inside of a tube with a nice fit for sliding. there is a hole that allows the pressure fed oil to bleed out at a steady rate, thereby keeping a hydraulic tension on the lifter body itself, extending the aforementioned plunger, which takes up play. the lifters are designed to work properly when they are adjusted to halfway through their stroke. this is how the hydraulic lifter maintains contact with the cams lobes and the pushrods which activate your rocker arms and to the valve tips. try googling hydraulic lifters and there may be a better explanation. also look at the lifters you'll see in the s.e. portion of your parts and accessories catalog and imagine how this all works in concert to make for a great way for the lifters, also known as cam followers to operate.
thanks a lot, now i'm confused again. hope this helped anyway.

 

You might try some Rislone oil treatment. Sometimes that can help lifter noise. 5 min is a long time, mine makes noise for the first second or two, the longest after it sits for a while or as it gets cold outside. What oil do you use?

Toby

 

Ok, I found a pretty good example of how they work. Now what causes the bleed down? Seems to be that the oil must be leaking out of the oil chamber some how, which then causes lifter not to lift.

I agree, seems that if it was only bleeding down it wouldn't take that long. It probably isn't 5 minutes, but it seems that long. I usually let the bike warm up a couple minutes, and by time I get to the freeway (about a mile) it's gone.

I'm using Amsoil 20-50.

 

The ones that will bleed down are the ones that are holding a valve open. It is the valve spring pressure that forces the oil back out of the lifter.

 

lifter bleed down is common and generally won't hurt anything other then cause some clatter. Basically it is caused by wear and tear and the weaking of the spring. like the other poster said when a valve is open there is a lot of tension on the lifter.

 

Lifter bleed down is caused by wear or defective parts.
Just had to have the lifters replaced on my wifies 2010 Camaro SS.The lifters would tick on start up and take a minute or two to quit down.New revised lifters were installed under warranty.
I had to have the lifters replaced in my old '06 Road Glide at 25000 miles,they were colapsed.

Some dealers like yours may say it's normal.You could try a different dealer to replace them under warranty.

 

Sounds like to me your lifters are bad.It shouldn't take that long for the lifters to start pumping oil.Can only get worse.

 

A few seconds of tapping to pump up a lifter when you first start a bike usually isn't a problem. If it happens every start up, or lasts more than a few seconds you probably have some wear, or a lifter goin' bad. The good news is that it isn't difficult or expensive to replace 'em. If you do need to replace, replace all four at the same time.

 

here is a animation i found on how a lifter works to give you a idea