[69boo307]

I pulled this guy out tonight while working on taking my heads off. I have 4 that look like this, kinda like the surface was rubbed with steel wool or something. Is this bad? The other lifters looked like new, no marking on them except for a very faint circle pattern.

BTW, those aren't scratches on it, it's just lint from the rag.

 

[cam-copier]

Looks like a little of the camshaft material is transfering over to the lifter. Eventually the lobe will can go flat. Its hard to tell from a picture how bad it is.
I would pop it back in and put an indicator on the lifter and measure the lift compared to some good ones. Your probably down .001" or .002" from the others. The good news is , it is still spinning in the engine.

 

[d1_bradley]

They should also ONLY be put back in the original position. If they weren't marked, well that's how we learn.

 

[EddieC67ss]

Sometimes the hard way!

 

[69boo307]

I have them in right order, don't worry. I'll put them back where they came out of. The question is, is the cam on its way out already? Wouldn't surprise me considering nothing else is going right with this thing.

 

[69boo307]

ttt... I know as many flat cams as people have here, someone ought to be able to tell me if this lifter is good or not.

 

[jpete]

ttt... I know as many flat cams as people have here, someone ought to be able to tell me if this lifter is good or not.

I would hold the bottom of one lifter against the side of another sort of in an "L" shape. If there isn't a clear "crown" to the horizontal leg of the "L" then I'd say chuck it. Compare it with another that doesn't have that wear mark and see if there is a difference.

 

[Tom Mobley]

the foot of the lifter is supposed to be glassy smooth. That pic looks like it has a sort of textured surface in the middle. If it's anything but perfectly smooth and have a little crown to it THROW IT, THE OTHER LIFTERS AND THE CAM AWAY. Get new stuff. It's cheap compared to losing lobes, filling the engine full of metal trash and doing a complete rebuild. Do those ALL CAPS look like yelling? Good.

 

[SWHEATON]

Yes,i second Tom's thoughts on your Cam 7 lifters,CHUCK THEM before you wipe the cam & lifters out contaminating your oiling system with bearing material that will score your crank,rod/main/cam bearings.

But if you just cant do that and want to take a chance i would check all the other lifters and chuck any that are not very smooth & glassy looking on the bottom/s.

Then i would inspect and lobes on the cam that had suspect bad looking lifters for signs of bad wear pattern/s etc .

If you found any suspect or bad looking lobes give up at that point and pull the cam and lifters for replacement,it's a must.

But,if the lobes looked ok that the suspect looking lifters came from i would re-install the good lifters on the same lobes they came from and apply moly cam breakin lube to the all the lobes and lifter bottoms before reinstalling the good ones.

Then i would buy new lifters to replace any of the bads ones and also apply moly lube to the lobes they are to run on the the bottoms of the lifters and install them.

Then i would pour a qt of gm EOS or crane engine breakin lube over the lifters & cam before you reinstall the intake.

Now you should use the std cam breakin proceedure when you fire it back up again and cross your fingers things work out.

Scott

 

[SWHEATON]

Brian,i sent some cam install/breakin info i put together a while back i thought would be helpfull to you through t/c msg so check it out.

scott

 

[autohausmm]

Lifters should be at least .002 higher in the center of the base that rides on the camshaft. If they are flat across the bottom or indented then trash them.
The camshaft lobes should not show any signs of wear at the top area of the lobes or they will wear on the lifter and fill your oiling system full of engine damagining metal particles.

 

[69boo307]

Thanks for the replies guys! I don't ahve the cam out yet, so I don't know what the lobes look like where the funky looking lifters were. If the cam lobes look absolutely perfect maybe I'll just try replacing the questionable lifters. I was ridiculously anal breaking in this cam, followed all the 'rules'. I had the EOS, the moly lube, the break-in procedure... the only reason I can figure it would be failing would be faulty parts or maybe I messed up lashing the rockers.

the bad thing is I'm taking the engine apart because of oil consumption, not because I thought the cam was going bad. Looks like just about everything in this engine is screwed up, I just keep finding more problems.

thanks again for the replies, and Scott thanks for the info via PM.

 

[SWHEATON]

Hi Brian,just for your info if you accidentially have your valves adj a little off meaning they clatter a little and or are a midge too tight as in a 1/4 turn too tight durring cam breakin which should not cause any cam lobes to go flat as you were wondering about.

Its usually things like dirt contam in the oil ing system,cam not lubed up well enough or most of the lube is wipped off the lobes durring valve adj or even defective dinged or scratched lobe/s of lifter/s that can wipe out cam/lifters. And also even more of the cam lube could wipped of the cam/lifters if you dont get the motor to fire up imediately and have to crank it over too long before startup to fill carb with fuel and get the timing squared away before it fires up as i mentioned in the lengthy cam install/breaking proceedures i sent you.

Lastly,you mentioned your pulling the new motor due to it burning oil,dont forget to make sure you not running too rich when you re-ring it and reifre it as this can at times cause cylender fuel wash that can quickly glaze up the cylenders making them too slippery for the rings to breakin resulitng in oil burning.

I rblty my 396 2 yrs ago with $4k rapped up in parts & machine work and it too used oil untill i got apporx 1500-2k miles on it because the Sealed Power/Speedpro Moly rings i used took that long to seat. I have rblt many engines over the yrs and most rings sealed up much quicker in the other motors i rblt prior to this one so i though i was in trouble. But my machinest chilled me out and said to take many long open road rides varying my speed and at times getting into it pretty hard like up hill in 4th gear to load the motor and force the rings to seat/seal better which did the trick. He said the Speedpro rings were very good/durable rings to use but thay they did take a lot longer seat at times than other rings and that was good advice and was definately true in my case so keep that in mind if you use that same type rings. I also thought maybe the macninest didnt prep my cylenders correctly with a rough enough hone job which could be why the rings took so long to seat but either way they finally seated and i did not have to tear the 700lb out of the car again. (PHEW!)

Scott