There are a couple things you gotta bear in mind.
If you have air conditioning you have to remove the condenser in front of the
radiator, which means losing all the refrigerant.
The lifters will MOST likely be somewhat difficult to pull up and out because
they will mushroom a ring around the bottom that is larger than the lifter bore.
There is a factory lifter puller but it is not positive and even then many times
the lifters will NOT go upward and out.
The lifters are kinda long. Sometimes you can get them out the cam bore but
especially with a 4-cylinder (B18 and B20) with its graduated cam bores, catching
them so they don't drop into the crankcase is tricky. I have at least 5 and maybe
7 lifters in the crankcase of my 164 at this writing, with no ill effects.
But one time in Clarksville, TN, while changing cams on another 164, one lifter
caught somewhere and did not make it to the bottom. On the first drive of the car
I heard a sickening "CLANK!!" on a hard left turn. I stopped and looked things over
but could not see anything from the outside. About 15,000 miles later I started
to get a knocking which grew more and more intense. I was headed east from Yuma
with wife and daughter in the summer and the knocking got worse, oil pressure light
came on and the engine had less power and was overheating. Oil level was OK but
we BARELY made it into San Simón, Arizona, near the NM line. We left the car in
the yard of the Southeast Arizona Diesel shop. The people there were kind enough
to take us to Road Forks, NM where there was a motel where we could spend the night.
They came and got us in the morning and we evaluated the situation and determined
the closest car rental agency to the east was at El Paso and the closest bus stop was at Lordsburg, NM. So they took us to Lordsburg where we waited several
hours to get on a Greyhound (after their strike) and took the bus to the El Paso Airport
where we rented a small Toyota. I got in, turned the key and it started immediately
and although the temperature was around 101°, the air conditioning came on and it
was COOL in the car. Furthermore the car could get maybe 32 mpg compared to 20+
for the 164. But the GREATEST feeling was that, if there should be a problem, it was
NOT MY PROBLEM!! The rental car was a bit more expensive since it was one-way
to Charleston, SC but certainly less stressful from that point on. Did I mention
that the temp in the desert was around 110°?
All that to say this - lifters in the sump = no problem. Lifters on the way down
with the engine operating can break off rodcap bolts and nuts.

You can sometimes catch the lifters through the cam bore by putting something
sorta (but not too) flexible in the bore. It has to bend to let the lifters come
completely out of their bores but it has to be stiff enough to hold the lifters
so that you can pull them out the front. It is tricky at best and I have retrieved
an average of about 60% of them overall, and only had a problem with ONE lifter.
But it was QUITE a problem presented at a bad time and place.
--
George Downs, Bartlesville, Heart of the USA!