Precautions before removing camshafts for lifter rebuild?

[vereshchak]

Hello everyone,

I'm on a mission to rebuild all my lifters on my 1990 Twin Turbo. I got the upper plenum off today and next I'm going to take off all my valve covers. I got all new gaskets/seals and have been doing a lot of research but I can't find much about valve lifter removal. I have found quite a bit about rebuilding/cleaning them but not really anything about getting them out. I imagine I need to remove my cams to get to the lifters, do I need to take any precautions other than cleaning and lubricating everything when I put it all back together? Do I need to set my engine to cylinder #1 TDC? If anyone knows of any write ups it would be greatly appreciated!

[z.Leinbach]

If you are are removing cams, it's best set the timing to top dead and make sure everything is on time, make sure nothing is off and will go back in without a hitch.

[vereshchak]

So I'm assuming I have to remove the timing covers? Do I have to remove the cam gear as well? For lifters being a very typical problem in these cars there really isnt much information on removing or replacing them.

[z.Leinbach]

I hear lifters being a problem on the VQ motors, haven't heard of such on the VG but I'd say yes, do timing while your doing lifters that way it's all in sync, and I imagine it be somewhat straight forward, back together the same way it came apart,

[evildky]

When removing any cam form any engine the first step it to set the engine at tdc. As for instruction, the fsm details camshaft removal which is what you must do to get at the lifters. The lifters themselves just slide right out once the cam is out of the way.

cliffnotes:
set engine at tdc
drain coolant
remove plenum
remove radiator fan
remove hard coolant pipes from front of motor
remove timing covers
remove timing belt
remove cam covers
remove cam gears
remove timing cover backing plates
remove cams
remove lifters

This might be a bit of an oversimplification but that's about all there is to it