?? Anybody Know Lifters 101 ??

I always put the lifters in dry (paste on bore and face) on startup they should all pump up within 10 seconds and no you should not be able to push the piston down by hand once they're full of oil unless of course they've sitting for a long time. If you can either the check valve is screwed and not seating or the piston or bore are scored. The valve springs will put a lot more force on the lifter than you can and over time the lifter may bleed down, this is normal, but should pump right back up after starting the engine.

If you install the lifters full of oil and pumped up you run the risk of one or more of the valves being held open for a few minutes after engine startup. This will happen until the valve spring can force the lifter piston to collapse up until the valve reaches zero lash at the valve face to valve seat. All during this time the engine could run like ****, barking and farting back through the carb and hard to idle making the owner think he's got a valve timing or carb problem when in actual fact he just needed to wait 5-10 minutes to let things settle out.