Valve Lifters for Dummies

Valve lifter types

The staffer assigned to check the Antisocial Network's back catalog for dead links brought her first nominee to the staff meeting a few days back. It seems she'd been looking for a Hunker post about hydraulic valve lifters (why it was at Hunker is unknown) and found it gone. Leaf Group, however, had kindly redirected the link to a post by one Cayden Conor at ItStillRuns.com. The staffer recognized the name, and also recognized that Conor (writing then under the name Cheryl Bowman) was every bit as unprepared to answer the question at hand, "How Do Car Engine Lifters Work?"

Conor's post appears in place of a previous awardee written by Regina Paul that purported to explain how hydraulic lifters work (it didn't). Cayden briefly covers hydraulic lifters — or perhaps we should just say that she mentions them. Her utter ignorance of internal combustion engine design and function is apparent from the first two sentences:

"The lifters actuate the intake and exhaust valves. The cam has lobes that are egg-shaped, allowing the lifters to move up and down."

We'd be impressed if 1) we thought that Conor knew what "actuate" meant in this context and 2) had she said "eccentric" instead of "egg-shaped." But hey: this is about as close to factual as Cheryl managed to get. Feast your eyes on the mishmash of factoids and misinformation that followed that succinct introductory phrase:

• "...the lifters move a push rod up and down, which in turn moves the rocker up and down. The front of the rocker moves the valve."
• "Solid lifters do not compress, as hydraulic lifters do."
• "Hydraulic lifters... are 'pumped up' with oil prior to installation in the vehicle. 
• "The plunger has an oil reservoir, which is kept full through a check valve."
• "This allows for less resistance, which in turn allows for more horsepower"

While Conor's pronouncements contain within them kernels of fact, it's quite obvious that she merely scraped random factoids from a source that may or may not have been authoritative. It's impossible to be certain, since eHow.com didn't require references back in 2009 when our Dumbass of the Day barfed this one up.

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