I have a 2000 cherokee. Just replaced the head with the Clearwater casting. I did not remove the lifters when I did this. I did clean out all the galleys around the lifters of all the crap/sludge, etc. I then poured a healthy coating of Lucas on them before reassembly. Everything works fine but 5 of my rockers are not getting oil from the pushrods. I've ran it for several minutes at a time thinking they would start oiling but they haven't. The pushrods are centered in the plunger of the lifter so I know they are installed correctly. I've got everything well lubricated so as to not scar the trunions on the rockers and I don't seem to have any unnecessary ticking. Everything is torqued to spec. Ideas?

 

Hows your oil pressure? Low pressure won't push the oil up to the rockers also I would clean the push rods until you can see daylight through the other side

 

+1

Also, your lifters might be gummed up anyway, especially with thick Lucas crap in there. Add in some thinning/cleaning agent like MMO, Seafoam, STP Motor Treatment (same as Seafoam), kerosene, whatever, get the engine hot and let it run for a while and see if any gunk gets dissolved and something comes out of the push rods

 

35 at idle when cold. Pushrods where all check before install. I even swapped positons and I still have no oiling on 5 out of the 12. Pulling the head back off.

 

I ran some seafoam through it and it didn't help at all. Now when it gets to operating temp it struggles to run then dies.

 

Remove valve cover and run engine to see oil in rocker arms.
Oil goes through lifters and pushrods.
If you installed pushrods right, your lifters are clogged.
Drain oil, fill with ATF and run engine. It is your last chance.
You can also have clogged pushrods. Remove them and look through.
Most likely lifters.
I had kind of similar problem, one of my lifters was partially clogged and it took longer after start up to get oil to one of rocker arms.