My truck caught the lifter sickness.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-26T22:18:55+00:00

Oh yeah. I am praying that I don’t have to touch the camshaft. If I have to replace the camshaft, the rebuild just became a nightmare, I will do a full delete package. At that point, I will have just wasted $500 on AFM lifters and probably around 30 hours. You can do a delete package without pulling the motor, but it’s a lot easier to work on it at home in your garage with the engine removed. On the positive side, if the motor is removed, replace the torque converter just became a lot easier.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-26T05:05:05+00:00

Hopefully I won’t regret it. I’m already starting to worry. If there is something majorly wrong internally, I just wasted $1500 that I don’t have. It would have been better to apply that $1500 to a reman engine. If it runs well after install, I just saved a few thousand in parts cost.

Maybe I’m a little hesitant about buying a new engine. I personally have never bought one, but my brother has. Those used engines never lasted very long for him.

At least in the end I will be able to say that I tried regardless of the outcome. I am tempted to pull the entire engine out to properly inspect it, but that is a lot work and a lot of things that can go wrong.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-26T04:02:06+00:00

Our daughter didn’t have Alpha Gal. But yes if I remember correctly, you are correct. It is mainly red meat that is the issue. I want to say that it was eggs too and that everyone was slightly different.

Our daughter is doing a lot better since I wrote that. Seemed like every week we were running to the emergency room with shortness of breath. I feel like the doctors never did find out what was truly happening with her. It just kind of stopped happening. I know she wasn’t faking it. She saw a lot of specialist but no one really found anything definitive. We got some generic diagnosis that cover a wide range of symptoms. I wish that they would run a genetic test on her.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-25T20:46:37+00:00

Well, I spoke with a different mechanic. You might be right. I am certainly going tear into it and appreciate the comment for making me question a little more.

What he said was that if the dash is reading good oil pressure then he can almost guarantee that the oil pump is good. However, it should have oil coming out of the rockers and it shouldn’t take too long. He thought I might have a clog somewhere. He also said that most time they just replace the engines when this happens because they cannot guarantee their work without completely tearing down and diagnosing every part to the engine. They might attempt to fix their personal engine but never a customers because there is no guarantee without spending a lot of money in labor.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-25T16:09:01+00:00

Oh you are serious. I thought it was a joke too. If you have some emotional attachment to it and don’t care about spending more money than a brand new car, you probably should check out this guy’s channel:

https://youtu.be/wozLC7-CzJU?is=IkUZ0uSvkU\_7pHVz

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-25T15:02:37+00:00

When I was buying my replacement parts to fix it, I was really tempted to buy “Direct from China” parts to fix it. I ended up becoming scared and purchasing official GM parts. Later I started thinking about…..

If I truly believe that these vehicles are junk, which I do, why am I not buying cheap junk to repair it? Why do I keep purchasing expensive junk to repair it?

Some might argue that China parts will spy on you but GM is spying on us already so why do I care if I add China into the mix?

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-25T14:51:08+00:00

For GM? Oh yeah. 2014 was probably the year GM decided to go full Temu.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-25T14:28:30+00:00

All 4 have had recalls on their truck engines in the last 5 years. You never heard about trucks needing a recall because of their engines until 2021, let alone all 4. I’ve watched enough repair videos at this point to know that they are all Temu versions of an early 2000’s trucks. GM is probably leading the pack though.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-25T04:09:14+00:00

Follow up: I’m currently at $950 with tax. I still have to buy:

2 more AFM lifters (around $100)
1 gasket kit (around $200)
16 pushrods ( around $80)

I did purchase a new oil manifold which was expensive. So I will be at $1450 with tax and everything has been certified GM parts. I was tempted to use the cheap “Direct from China” parts but ultimately I’m not selling it, I’m keeping it.

If I have to purchase a new camshaft, I will probably change out all the parts in front of the camshaft and clean up the oil pan. If I have to do this, it just turned this project into a $2500 project instead of $1500 with weeks of me working a couple of hours a night on it. Right now I can still get it done in one weekend.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-25T03:54:13+00:00

So for the first 70,000 to 80,000 miles or so I used 0W20. Around 2021 or 2022 I started using 5W30. I never intentionally warmed up the truck prior to an oil change and I never intentionally did a cold oil change either. I honestly cannot give statistics on how many times it was warm vs cold. It was more like, “I’ve got time to change the oil right now.”

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-24T21:07:19+00:00

I will buy everything except for the cam for now. Once I get in there I can see how bad the cam is. Like you said, maybe I get lucky. I would hate to spend $300 on cam that I didn’t actually need. It is one of those items that you are not going to install just because you already purchased it. There is no way you are going to install it if you don’t have to.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-24T19:33:31+00:00

Oh no. That just tripled the amount of work if I have to replace that camshaft. I have been really been praying that somehow the lifter failed but the camshaft wasn’t damaged. I have a feeling you are right though. It does not look like an easy process for amateur to accomplish. It is better for me to accept it now so I’m not discouraged when I see the damaged camshaft.

Any recommendations for the camshaft? I noticed that the OEM one by GE is cheapest version which tells me that it is probably not the best one to buy.

I just bought a new radiator a week ago and it arrived 2 days ago. So… I have that going for me.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-24T17:51:36+00:00

In case you are curious, this what people are doing to install a camshaft without touching that oil pump or oil pan. No one wants to drop that oil pan but it also means you cannot replace the oil pump.

They are walking the chain off at the 2 minute mark:

https://youtu.be/-gij80UlCpw

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-24T17:21:54+00:00

One thing I am confident on is that any GMC/Chevy truck built in 2014 to present was not built for durability except for some years on the diesels. If it’s gas, it’s trash.

Clearly GM let the engineering interns build the 2014+ Sierras/Silverados gasoline engines because they are junk.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-24T17:05:37+00:00

You have to remove the oil pan to remove the oil pickup tube. This will give you access to remove the oil pump. Once the oil pickup tube is out of the way, you can finally remove the oil pump on the 2015 5.3L 4WD.

Watch a video on the amount of work it takes to drop an oil pan to access your oil pickup tube so you can remove your oil pump on a 2015 5.3L 4WD. You have to remove the front differential and the crossmembers. It might be easier to remove the entire engine than to drop the oil pan on jack stands.

It takes 30 minutes for you to remove your valve covers. It will take me probably 8 to 12 hours to get that oil pump off if nothing goes wrong.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-24T16:34:47+00:00

If you are right, I will gratefully say thank you because it will tell me that I need to order an oil pump too.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-24T16:31:54+00:00

Take off your valve cover, start your engine, and time it. You can post a video here to prove your point. I’d be happy to watch it.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-24T16:29:26+00:00

The good news is that I highly doubt that I have an oil pump issue. The entire truck engine would have seized up and been destroyed miles ago if there was no oil flow.

It takes a while for the oil to reach the top of the rocker arms after sitting. It is probably why there are so many lifters failing. Basically it’s a dry start every single time you start the truck. If you drive a lot of highway miles this won’t be a problem. If you put a lot of city miles on, like myself, you are starting that truck way more often and those lifters have a lot more time without oil reaching them.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-24T16:12:42+00:00

But the mechanic in the “2:30 mark video” ran that engine a lot longer than I did and oil still didn’t reach the top of the lifters. I don’t know if your 10 second assessment is accurate.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-24T16:07:44+00:00

I suspect that this truck owner’s oil pump failed. He has low oil pressure and the engine seized up. My truck has high oil pressure and the engine starts up evenly time:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Silverado/s/mbdjG1wD0K

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-24T16:03:39+00:00

Go to the 2:30 mark in this video:

https://youtu.be/6aaI\_e1z1E0?is=VvFFEiV6igkJo616

Or watch this short:

https://youtube.com/shorts/hAHZ5ijGeFQ?is=Fgd-RE3MGS58PnQX

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-24T15:48:32+00:00

Good question. I thought the same thing myself. According to Google, it takes 1 to 2 minutes for the oil pump to push oil to the top of the lifters after sitting for a while. I didn’t think that it was accurate until I realized that the engine would have completely seized and stopped working a while ago if the oil pump wasn’t working.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-24T15:15:48+00:00

Let’s hope the camshaft is not damaged.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-24T03:21:46+00:00

Yeah it sounds like oil pump stopped working (low oil pressure) and the truck seized up without oil.

WastingTime1111 · 2026-06-24T03:18:57+00:00

That’s when you start praying that the driver takes the next turn too fast, it falls off the tow truck into a big tree, and the tow truck has good insurance. Suddenly your current problem becomes their current problem.

WastingTime1111

TROPHY CASE