Lifter tray question

[tekfire07]

Need some advice here. I am replacing my cylinder head on my 09 5.3l Tahoe.
I noticed my lifter trays are lose. Can I just replace the trays? I know they are a ware item. Or do I need to replace the lifters? Do you think the cam shaft is okay? Engine was running fine until the #7 spark plug blew out. The head was unrepairable.
Engine has 195 k miles on it.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Erik

 

[Marky Dissod]

Need some advice here. I am replacing my cylinder head on my 09 5.3l Tahoe.
I noticed my lifter trays are loose. Can I just replace the trays? I know they are a wear item.
Or do I need to replace the lifters? Do you think the cam shaft is okay? Engine was running fine until the #7 spark plug blew out. The head was unrepairable.
Engine has 195 k miles on it.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Erik

When you go to replace the trays, you should be able to check the lifters and the camshaft yself.
Without providing us pics that you could also examine more closely than we can, our guess is no better than yours.

If the cam needs replacing, feel free to disable & delete Engine Half@$$ while you're at it, turn it into a real & simple V8. Always worth the effort.
EDIT:
Even if the cam does NOT need replacing, feel free to disable & delete Engine Half@$$ while you're at it, turn it into a real & simple V8. Always worth the effort.

 

[solli5pack]

You can replace just the trays. Make sure they're GM oem ones though. Visual inspection of the lifters and cam should answer you second question.

 

[strutaeng]

You can definitely just replace the trays, yes.

Lifters? Umm...probably need to inspect first. Same for the camshaft. Any wear, and both should be replaced. Are you doing the work yourself? If hiring, ask your mechanic for his opinion on tbe wear.

On the Summit Racing camshafts, tbe instructions say to replace all lifter along with the cam. It's probably because typically, a lot of guys do a "cam swap" on a high mileage LS engine, and failure probability is higher.

Do you have your DOD/AFM system active? That somewhat complicates things.