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Very nice work on the valve seats - congrats!

Thanks OD! Hopefully we are doing all of this correctly.

Got the lifters all cleaned, disassembled, and mounted today. Now I just need to figure out a way to test them in kerosene to see if the #1 lifters are bad. I don't have a test rig like Ross, and don't have the materials and tools to build one.

He might let you "borrow" it, or the one other one that got sold to I don't remember who...

We rigged up a terrible approximation of Ross's lifter testing machine. It was ugly, but it at least have us the ability to compare so the lifters to each other. I had previously cleaned and disassembled all of them in paint thinner. We tested them by placing them in a stock lifter bore, then placing that whole assembly in kerosene and used a lever to pump them up. Then hung a weight off the other to apply pressure to the lifter and time how long it took to collapse.

The results were unexpected. Most lifters tested between 5-10 second to collapse. One was about 15, and one was about 25. #1 exhaust never pumped up and totally failed, and we were expecting that. But there were four other lifters that collapsed in two seconds or less.

I don't think another round of cleaning is going to help these. Single repro lifters from Merritt are $50 a pop, and we need to try and keep the budget in check on this car. A whole set of repro lifters is $240 on eBay from Kanter and another vendor.

What do you recommend? Do a whole set of new lifters? Try and find 5 good OEM lifters?

I have quite a few lifters at my shop and can spare a few once tested (I bought one of Ross's testers) but I won't be there for about a month. I'm sure you'll want them before then!