The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop lifter grind

1961 235 with mechanical lifters. Lobe lift measures intake 0.209-0.211, exhaust 0.219-0.221. The intake lift numbers are within new specs and the exhaust lift numbers are within worn specs according to shop manual. Lifters exhibit varying degrees of wear, one is significantly worn. I am at the point of deciding whether to reuse the cam shaft. After that I've either got to find a lifter grinding service or buy new lifters. Can you put freshly ground or new lifters on a worn camshaft? Does the camshaft need to be reground at the same time as the lifters? Is it cheaper to buy new camshaft/lifters? Your input is appreciated.

Take a close look at the lobe that has ben running against that badly worn lifter- - - -I'd be surprised to find that it doesn't also have some noticeable wear. Some people claim that lifters need to have a slightly convex shape (middle higher than the sides) but a brand new set of "milk can" solid lifters we put into John's 261 were completely flat across the bottom. A concave lifter is definitely too worn to reuse, so it should be reground or replaced. If your old cam isn't showing noticeable wear on any of the lobes, it can probably be reused with new or resurfaced lifters- - - -just do the same kind of break-in run on starting that you would do with a new cam.

Edit: resurfacing lifter bottoms shouldn't be beyond the capability of any machinist who is worthy of the name. It would only take me a couple of hours to fabricate a fixture capable of putting an acceptable, repeatable radius on the bottom of a set of lifters in my little backyard machine shop.
Jerry

Flat bottoms wouldn't be too hard to accomplish. Grinding to a radius would be a little more difficult. Knowing what radius to use could be helpful. I've read that the radius should be 100 inches, 50 inches, and some get more picky like 52". I've got one more local source that I haven't been able to contact. He runs a two-man shop but probably does more volume than all of the other shops in the area combined. For that reason, he is really hard to reach by phone. He gets all of the race car business in the area. If anyone around here can do it, he can.

The lobe where the worn lifter was located doesn't show any more wear than the other lobes. That lobe lift was 0.220 which was right in the middle of the .219 -.221 range. The damaged lifter shows a slight "keyway" worn into its face because it wasn't rotating. I can't see any more wear on that lobe but I don't have any method here at the house of checking duration, etc.

I could probably manage to do a 48" radius +/- a little, on my only lathe that's in operating shape right now. Anything that puts a slight crown on the lifter base would probably be sufficient, since very few of us are pushing these old engines to anywhere near their design limits.

Jerry

Or you could send them to rocker arms unlimited in California and have them done by a group that offers lifter regrind service in addition to rebuilding rocker arms.

http://rockerarms.com/

Looks like a three hour drive, which is a viable option. Let me see what the race car engine guy can do. I won't know until Monday about that.

Also, I emailed Schneider Cams and I'm awaiting their response.

I sent the folks at rockerarms an inquirey.

Granpa I saw a 100$ set of milkcan lifters on Ebay cherry new yesterday,probably would spend less that way,my .02 cents !

Granpa An old hot rodder in my town said you could glass bead a used (in good shape) cam then put new lifters and it would break-in and run fine. He also commented that if you got a new ring and pinion and they each came from a different state were they matched ??that was his take on the cam blasting trick.

Dragsix That rocker arm place knows how to glass bead stuff it looks like. In the olden days valve refacers had tools to radius the lifters,also I recall seeing the push rods just rotate probably from crowned lifters .

Not sure what you mean by glass bead stuff. Rocker arms unlimited refaces the lifters, at least the last set that I saw that came out of that shop.

I want some of what he's smoking!
LOL!
Jerry