66oldz

I have a 1966 Oldsmobile 442 400. Most of you probably recognize my position.

i have the .921 lifters which will cost a little over $300 for American. Building a lifter is fun and easy - something I have done before. What are the pros and cons of building the lifters and using a new cam and edlebrock heads and roller rockers.

i called Mondello to see if they have any clips for the lifter internals. He told me that this request is the most stupid request he has geared in 50 years. Very rude and did want to take the time to talk - he just wanted to sell me new ones.

please advise - although it would be nice not to be called stupid again

Sugar Bear

If not using a new cam I'd say no problem to disassemble, clean and reassemble the old lifters; but, with a new cam new lifters would be better.

If the old lifters are in excellent condition then it might be ok. Worst scenario is it hurts the new cam. That's your call.

​​​​​​New clips probably aren't necessary. Are they even available?

As far as being called stupid, time for a new vendor. Had an HVAC salesman tell me what I wanted was stupid, found a new vendor that did exactly what I wanted without any problem. He became my go to guy for HVAC over twenty years ago. Refer all my friends to his family business, first class work and completely trustworthy so...who was stupid?

Good luck with the build!!!

Fun71

I would be very cautious with used lifters on a new camshaft. My understanding is the lifter face and the camshaft lobe wear and "match" each other during use. If you then use that lifter on a new camshaft, the uneven surfaces can result in catastrophic damage to one or both (lifter and / or cam lobe).

I have read that there is a company that is able to resurface lifter faces to a like new condition so that they can be reused on a different camshaft, but this doesn't sound as if that is what you are talking about.

droldsmorland

Hey Mark,
As a seasoned wrench, my suggestion is never to mix match used lifters with a new cam. You will wipe the cam lobes. It will happen quickly or at best prematurely. Are you willing to risk the failure? Camshaft and lifters should always be replaced as a set. Its part of the reason break-in is required.

Side note: I never install a cam without degreeing or doing the cam bearings. Which is tough or nearly impossible do with the block in the car...see where I'm goin....You want this to be durable.

The heads and rockers are nice upgrades. Used lifters is not a place you want to cheap out on.

Pay attention to valve train geometry specifically pushrod length after the head & gasket change. Do your homework on this subject.
Steve

66oldz

thanks for the feedback. I have gone over the entire lifter with a digital micrometer. The seem to be very good. In fact when I pull the heads I noticed that they had been completely rebuilt - I still had magic marker on each valve for cc volume. I do know the engine is 020.

i want to get project right without spending all my money. I paid 1,000 for the e400 engine.

66oldz

It looks like I will be replacing lifters. Can anyone recommend a place to get .921 OD lifters

OLDSter Ralph

Mark, WHICH "Mondello" did you call ? The one in Corona, California, or the one in Pasa Robles, California ?

You could use lifters again if they were resurfaced with the correct 40" radius ground on the bottom and if they were hard enough after grinding to minimize wear. Some "old time"cam grinders offer that service, maybe some others.

A new set might be just as cheap. Lunati does have "Micro-trol" lifters with the different clips (internal snap rings). Talk to Cutlassefi

66oldz

The Mondello was mondelloperformance.com. I have never been so insulted in my life.

Fun71

As said above, the angle on the lifter face is a crucial dimension and you cannot measure that with a micrometer. I do not have a recommendation on where to purchase a set of .921" lifters these days. I bought a set for a 1967 400 engine many years ago from Smitty at MJ Proformance (I think that's the name of the place) but it was many years ago and even back then they were near $200 for the set.

Charlie Jones

They are on flea-bay ;
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...963+oldsmobile

OLDSter Ralph

Feel fortunate all you got was hurt feelings. I have Mondello performance on my DON'T CALL list.

"Point of clarity": Its not really an "angle". Its a 40 inch radius ground on the lifter bottom as they are rotated to give conical shape. While they are called "flat tappets", they really aren't "flat".
For this discussion, the lifters can't be measured with just a micrometer. It would be easier to use a flat plate and a dial indicator by placing the open end down. Especially since you are dealing with 16 of them.
............Just my two cents worth.

matt68F-85

Find some correct size snap rings.
Lynn should write a book on how to ruin a successful business.

66oldz

I would never purchase from them. I purchased about &5,000 almost 10 years ago and they were great. I have all kinds of new snap rings.

tjanks

matt68F-85

Stay away from oldsrocketparts as well, same guy, same place.

Charlie Jones

As Ralph stated , the lifters are not really flat on the bottom .
If you hold two new lifters together , flatside to flatside , and hold them up to a strong light .
You will see a small ray of daylight between them.
If you do not , they are worn out .

matt69olds

Is the bad publicity finally getting to them? Lynn trying to hide behind a new name?

VORTECPRO

The guy that grinds my cams can resurface your lifters, and he's very competent. Spirro Jannings Redline Cams, master grinder.

Schurkey

Hydraulic lifters can be taken apart--ONE AT A TIME--for cleaning and inspection. A hydraulic lifter is like a miniature oil filter--the oil path into them is reasonably large, the oil path out is microscopic. Contamination gets in, can't get back out.

DO NOT mix-up the plungers and lifter bodies. They're "select-fit" at the factory; to tolerances a "digital micrometer" can't resolve. Thus the suggestion to do them one-at-a-time.

A "digital micrometer" is entirely insufficient to gauge the clearance between plunger and main body inside a lifter.

The bigger problem with lifters is wear on the bottom. As has been said, lifters have a spherical crown which wears to the cam lobe. Thousands of years ago, folks would put used-but-still-crowned lifters on a new cam, or new lifters on a used cam. There was talk of "polishing" the lifter bottoms with fine sandpaper. Obviously, any lifter worn concave instead of convex is not a candidate for re-use.

There are lifter-refacing tools sold for use with valve grinders. Apparently, this used to be "a thing". I've never seen it done, or seen the results of refacing the lifter bottom--however--I have a suspicion that the lifter bottom was ground to a CONE shape instead of a spherical shape; and that probably worked OK in a low-dollar six popper; but maybe not so well with modern cams and stiff valve springs. Remember, back in the "good old days", gas stations had valve grinding equipment; and could buy the accessory to reface lifters. This may be an entirely-different, and lower-budget procedure than what's used by an actual camshaft grinding business.

For the record, the Nailhead Buick OHV V-8 engines were designed with truly flat lifters, on non-tapered cam lobes, and the lifter bores were not intentionally offset from the cam lobe. The Nailhead Buicks may spin the lifters by chance, but spinning the lifters was not deliberate.