I have a question about the roller lifters in my 96 Mitsubishi 2.4L 4
cyl SOHC engine. I just had the head and valves ground after my timing
belt broke. Due to some bad information I had for timing the camshaft
gear, I bent some of the intake valves during the cylinder head
reinstall process. I removed the rocker shaft and lifters when I was
trying to determine the miss in the engine. I found that the #4
cylinder had bent intake valves and they were not closing completly.
After removing the head & replacing the bent intake valves I
reinstalled the intake side rocker shaft and lifters. After starting
the engine the lifters were very noisy. The lifters are new. The guy at
the machine shop told me he usually bleeds the old lifters down so that
they fill again without being noisy. These are small lifters and i used
a small pin to un-seat the check ball and bleed them out. Now I can't
get the engine to run. It started for a little and then stopped. I
removed one of the lifters and see that it is still not filled with
oil. Did I cause permanent damage to the lifters? Shouldn't it fill
with oil rather quickly? I found out now that the noisy lifters were
due to the rocker shaft being installed unside down, blocking the oil
hole. Oil is coming out through the rocker arms now while cranking it
over. Any advice is appreciated.

Don