5.3 wiped out lifter. Fix?

Aharp · July 12, 2021

Hi everyone,

So this is my situation...Early last year I wiped out a DOD lifter which took out the cam. The lifter tray/guide cracked, it spun, and I was done. It's on my daily so I picked up a 30k mile take out from a 16 Tahoe. Swapped it out, put EFI Live in with a Blackbear tune (which I love). I did not dive into the take out engine any further than was required to diagnose it. Never removed the cam or oil pan, etc. My question is where could the metal have gone from the lifter and cam lobe that were destroyed? Do these engines run any kind of tray under the cam to catch debris, etc? A friend of mine has the engine and I am weighing my options with regards to putting it in a classic car project I have, obviously with a new cam.

Edited July 12, 2021 by Aharp
typo

CamGTP · July 12, 2021

Any metal is going to make it's way down into the oil pan.

Remove the camshaft and the valley plate and just flush everything out with brake cleaner and some used motor oil. Clean the oil pan and pick up tube out and you should be fine.