2015 Silverado 5.3 repeat lifter failure. Please help

Tj Rae · July 7, 2021

97k miles on a truck that has had perfect upkeep since bringing it off the lot, I found a stuck lifter about a week ago on #6 intake. No surprise that I happened, I was bummed but not shocked. I did the entire job myself as per GMs tsb, with all dealership oem parts, new guides and all new lifters across the bank. Cam looked perfect, bore looked untouched only real damage was tiny bit on the end of the pushrod smacking the rocker. Reassembled the motor and put maybe a .5 hour on the motor before I now a have a repeat failure in the same bore, I'm now halfway through the job again and I don't want to do this a third time. Any idea what could be causing it?

Mikeiser · July 9, 2021

Same boat here. Halfway through my second time replacing exhaust lifter cylinder 8. Except my lifter both times were damaged. Cam was OK weird enough. Doesn't seem to be oil starved. My suspicion is the lifter bore is not perfect anymore, causing the lifter to hang and get obliterated by the cam lobe.

I read somewhere an engine shop can insert brass repair sleeves but I'm not ready to remove the motor yet.

Or maybe the cam lobe is worn just enough into an aggressive enough ramp profile to hurt the lifter. I noticed my second failure began after I passed a slow driver on a two lane road(aggressive acceleration).

It's all speculation for me since I don't have the tools to measure the lifter bore and haven't found anyone else besides you experiencing this.

silveradosid · July 9, 2021

did you prime the lifters with oil before installing them

Mikeiser · July 10, 2021

I don't think that's a recommended practice anymore. I know Comp Cams and I think Crane Cams put out literature stating priming lifters could potentially over preload them, if that makes sense.

What I ended up doing was removing the 2 fuses for the injectors and turned the engine over for 5 seconds at a time, a couple of times, to prime the oil system.

Anyways, I ended up honing the lifter bore gently, cleaned it up with a rag dabbed in 10w30 and repeated 3 times till the bore was polished nicely. I test fitted the new lifter from AC Delco and it slipped in with a hair of resistance like the other non-dod lifters.

30 miles on it and no luck. I can hear ticking above 2k rpm still. I probably need to replace the cam at this point. Or buy a long block when I save the funds.

A little history:

AFM lifters replaced under PO(I don't have the printout of that, it'd be nice to see if it has any related info).

88k miles, bent pushrod, lifter replaced on cylinder 8 exhaust at dealership.

150k miles, lifter destroyed, pushrod replaced on cylinder 8 exhaust.

164k miles, lifter destroyed, pushrod replaced on cylinder 8 exhaust.

T-Town-Z · July 10, 2021

I'm at 138K and on the 2nd failure of the #7 AFM lifter. First time was at 55K, about 4 years ago, when GM paid for it. This time is on my dime. Not having the dealership do it this time, it's at a shop with plans to do a full DOD delete cam and lifter job as long as there is no other damage found.

It really is aggravating buying a vehicle new, doing all the right maintenance and still having these kind of breakdowns !

diyer2 · July 10, 2021

1 question.

How often did you change the oil?

Mikeiser · July 10, 2021

I always went off the DIC. When I bought the truck I replaced everything but the brake and radiator fluid with Amsoil religiously.

I have my suspicions the PO drove the truck like he stole it. Had the transmission replaced at 126k miles when the pump went to pieces inside of it.

T-Town-Z · July 15, 2021

On 7/8/2021 at 9:27 PM, Mikeiser said:

Same boat here. Halfway through my second time replacing exhaust lifter cylinder 8. Except my lifter both times were damaged. Cam was OK weird enough. Doesn't seem to be oil starved. My suspicion is the lifter bore is not perfect anymore, causing the lifter to hang and get obliterated by the cam lobe.

I read somewhere an engine shop can insert brass repair sleeves but I'm not ready to remove the motor yet.

Or maybe the cam lobe is worn just enough into an aggressive enough ramp profile to hurt the lifter. I noticed my second failure began after I passed a slow driver on a two lane road(aggressive acceleration).

It's all speculation for me since I don't have the tools to measure the lifter bore and haven't found anyone else besides you experiencing this.

My first indication that something was not right, was about 4 times before it completely failed, when I went to heavily accelerate and pass someone on the highway, when it downshifted it did like a double backfire, stumbled, then regained itself and went. The last time when it finally failed it did the double backfire sound, then I heard a bang, the engine started vibrating and lost power and the check engine light as well as traction control light came on. Additionally the engine made a rapping/tapping sound the rest of the way to work.

The guy working on it said the AFM lifter failed internally but my cam looked okay visually. Going with the full DOD delete cam and lifter swap now. Hopefully it never becomes an issue again !

Mikeiser · July 25, 2021

Yeah my buddy had that same rumble under the same circumstances when the engine goes from v4 to v8 too quick. I got off the phone with Christian Brothers Auto to have a Jasper engine installed. They apparently had to talk to GM engineers sometimes and learned that their own engineers drive other brands because the 2015-2019 engines are quite the headache.

Anyways, it'll run 9k to replace the motor.

T-Town-Z · July 27, 2021

$9K really sucks to spend on something this "new". I just got my truck back and cost $3500 for a full DOD delete cam, lifters, labor, plus a street tune afterward.

It really aggravates me that GM keeps building this garbage !

dgstarr63 · July 27, 2021

My 1962 Impala SS with 327 V8 has 103000 miles and 59 years old. It has never had an engine failure of any kind. Why can't GM build cars like that anymore?

Grumpy Bear · July 27, 2021

1 hour ago, dgstarr63 said:

My 1962 Impala SS with 327 V8 has 103000 miles and 59 years old. It has never had an engine failure of any kind. Why can't GM build cars like that anymore?

My 2015 Chevy 262 just turned 146,000 tonight running better now than it did new. They do build them like that.

BTW, did you have this in storage for alike 40 years or something? :crackup: 327 is a GREAT motor.

For the rest of you, remember before ya all start whining this isn't a 5.3 that they use the exact same valve gear and VLOM solenoids, oil pumps etc. Same motor platforms. Even the same ECU.

T-Town-Z · July 29, 2021

Hey Grumpy, I guess you're one of the the lucky ones that hasn't had any major problems come up.

I've previously purchased new trucks in 96, 01, 03 & 05. They all needed a few repairs, but not any high dollar expenses like my 2014 has had.

Even with all the proper maintenance, my #7 AFM lifter went out at 55K, but fortunately the dealer covered it under power-train warranty, but would have been over $2500 if I had to pay it. This spring, the A/C condenser failed. That was $1100 out of pocket. A month ago the #7 AFM lifter failed again, even though the AFM has been turned off the past 40K miles. It cost me $3500 out of pocket for a DOD delete cam & lifter job.

Yes, these new trucks are high tech, fuel efficient, and powerful. What I don't understand is, if GM see's repeated reliability issues, why keep building it the same way with the same parts ? They should't wait till the next major redesign in 10 years to fix it. Not everyone's AFM parts are failing, but there are enough owners with bad ones that you would think it should get their attention. It's not a good way to maintain brand loyalty !

Grumpy Bear · July 29, 2021

On 7/15/2021 at 6:57 PM, T-Town-Z said:

My first indication that something was not right, was about 4 times before it completely failed, when I went to heavily accelerate and pass someone on the highway, when it downshifted it did like a double backfire, stumbled, then regained itself and went. The last time when it finally failed it did the double backfire sound, then I heard a bang, the engine started vibrating and lost power and the check engine light as well as traction control light came on. Additionally the engine made a rapping/tapping sound the rest of the way to work.

The guy working on it said the AFM lifter failed internally but my cam looked okay visually. Going with the full DOD delete cam and lifter swap now. Hopefully it never becomes an issue again !

Just a guess. Oil aeration.

KARNUT · July 29, 2021

8 hours ago, T-Town-Z said:

Hey Grumpy, I guess you're one of the the lucky ones that hasn't had any major problems come up.

I've previously purchased new trucks in 96, 01, 03 & 05. They all needed a few repairs, but not any high dollar expenses like my 2014 has had.

Even with all the proper maintenance, my #7 AFM lifter went out at 55K, but fortunately the dealer covered it under power-train warranty, but would have been over $2500 if I had to pay it. This spring, the A/C condenser failed. That was $1100 out of pocket. A month ago the #7 AFM lifter failed again, even though the AFM has been turned off the past 40K miles. It cost me $3500 out of pocket for a DOD delete cam & lifter job.

Yes, these new trucks are high tech, fuel efficient, and powerful. What I don't understand is, if GM see's repeated reliability issues, why keep building it the same way with the same parts ? They should't wait till the next major redesign in 10 years to fix it. Not everyone's AFM parts are failing, but there are enough owners with bad ones that you would think it should get their attention. It's not a good way to maintain brand loyalty !

They did change the cylinder deactivation after 2014. And added it to the 6.2. Some of those failed before they left the lot. I haven’t had a problem with my new vehicles but one. It was covered under warranty. This is all for a couple miles per gallon in a controlled environment.