Called Rick (@CCR), and he talked me through the diagnosis. It appears that both the lifters on the #2 cylinder have "collapesed". He is sending me out two replacements so I should be back in business soon. So what exactly is a collapsed lifter???? I understand the principal of how they work, but what happens to make them collaps???? Later, Tim

in my experience failed HLA's "lifters" will be *stuck* in a lower position than the others and won't move. often if you try compressing them with a c clamp they won't budge. when you remove the cam tower, place a straight edge against the tops of all the HLA's, it's likely that the one or both in the noisey cylinder will be lower than the rest which should be in a straight line. as far as collapsed, that could be something different technically speaking like the internal spring or spacer could fail i suppose. i tried disassmbling the HLA's that i've had that were stuck and they won't budge. heat, ATF, many days of soaking in various penetrants and prying and pulling with channel locks and they would not free up so i could disassemble and clean them. i throw them away. really it's not even putting that much time into them, i just wanted to get them apart to see why they were so difficult.

 

dirty oil will foul up HLA's. frequent oil changes lead to healthy HLA's.

dirty oil will foul up HLA's. frequent oil changes lead to healthy HLA's.

My recent experience supports this theory. I generally don't change oil much in the cold Vermont winter. Had no tick this fall. Spring comes, so does tick. I did my spring oil change (castrol 10-30), added about 4 oz. of Seafoam to the crankcase, took the kids to Montreal (400 mile round trip). Tick gone.