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Is there any more news or updates concerning hydraulic lifter availability ,other than Kanter? I'm in the market for a few for my 356ci engine. Thanks

I believe they were not available for years until Kanter decided to reproduce them.You may find them at various auto flea markets or on Ebay but they are hard to find.

If you were referring to the possibility mentioned earlier this year of a replacement other than Kanters, this post 34 doesn't sound promising .

Around 4 years ago I was looking for a hydraulic lifter replacement for my 1950 356. Terrell Machine had some available that were for the Packard 6 Cylinder engine used by White Truck. They were very expensive. I went with an eBay purchase (Patrician Industries) that I have since assumed were the Kanter lifters. I don't know for sure. The lifter has been doing its job for 4 years now without any problems.

The 245-Six that Packard sold to White for use in the 3014 cab-over truck used used mechanical lifters.

So far as I know, other than finding used ones in an extra engine or the the occasional offer on eBay (which may be Kanter's and not NOS), Kanters is the only source. These lifters, made by Wilcox-Rich, were similar to but not interchangeable with the ones used by Cadillac in the same era. As Ross and other have previously commented on this topic, lots of Kanter's lifters in use with good results.

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I tried to verify the hydraulic lifter info through Google and other sources but had no luck so I went with what I was told at the time.

So to fix it... Terrill Machine had replacement lifters 4 years ago, they were very, very expensive and the original source may have been NOS.

Edit: OK... found it. You posted a White Truck spec sheet back in 2008 here.

I once heard that they're the same lifters used in P-51 Mustang engines. I also heard that the place that supplies them for the aircraft charged less than what the collector car industry was charging. Any truth to either of these statements?

West, sounds like a question for Robert J. Neal, or perhaps there's mention of it in his extensive coverage of that engine in his book. I'll give it a browse and see if the answer is apparent but given that it's an overhead cam design, I'd doubt it.

Years ago I worked for Jack Roush and one of the projects I worked on was a set of billet valve rocker arms for his P-51, Old Crow. We made them from a special aluminum that was alloyed with silicon which made them the toughest material I have ever had to cut. Regular High Speed steel was useless on the stuff and even carbide drills struggled to get through it. We ended using diamond coated carbide bits to drill the holes in them. In any case, the P-51 Merlin engine doesn't use lifters, the cams act directly on the valve stem like this: see pic below. Note that the picture is of the stock valvetrain and not Jacks fancy billet parts.
Cheers
Todd

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Thanks for all the replies and info. I'll be contacting Kanter tomorrow. The one noisy lifter will soon be history.