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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!

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Thanks for the offer Don. Yes, we need the car up and running before then unfortunately. I was hoping to have it done before the end of the month, but that's not going to happen now.

Has anyone used the reproduction lifters? Do they work well? How much different in length are they from OEM? Nearly all the valves were in spec with OEM lifters, and the few that weren't had the stems refaced. Interested to know if we are going to have more valve work to do if we go to new lifters.

Let's just say that you better test the new ones before you put them in. I can probably find you 5 nice used. 20 @

Thanks Ross, that's a much better option than getting new ones. I'll contact you and we can work it out.

My 1954 Patrician has had the reproduction lifters in it for decades and they’re fine although comparing side by side to an original, the finish isn’t as good where it doesn’t need to be.