Re: Valve Lifters & Tappets

Posted by Jim L. in OR On 2014/9/11 14:42:59

Thank you O_D for your help with this mess.

As I mentioned in my response to Wesley's post, I knew the plunger and lifter body were not interchangeable but I had no idea that the plunger, body, and tappet or cam follower were all of a piece and could not be mix and matched. That does explain why I found that one lifter body slopping around inside the cam follower or tappet.

This has me more than a little concerned. If I did have to replace a lifter, it sounds like I would also have to replace the cam follower or trust to luck that the new lifter would not be too large or too small but just right when inserted into the tappet?

That could be a real challenge when doing a valve job or even a rebuild. I can see I should have started this earlier in the Summer, but that's just not the way my life is working these days.

But thank you once again O_D for your help and experience in this. I believe Wesley just buttoned everything back up and then replaced the "ticking" engine with the rebuilt engine that was original to the car While the original engine to this car is long gone (this is the engine with a blank pad) I do have an unmolested 288 for Automatic Transmissions that I could swap out. But it's an unknown and this engine is otherwise so good: no smoke, no leaks and the oil level on the dipstick never changes and when I had a mechanical oil pressure gauge mounted, the oil pressure zoomed up to 40 psi and didn't change until the engine was turned off.