Reusing lifters

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RustyRatRod said:
You can argue what's correct and what's not till the cows come home, the FACT is, LOTS and LOTS of people have put random lifters on random lobes for DECADES and never had an issue.
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its wrong,..should never be done! but we all have done it or know some body that has and it worked out! did it on my first rebuild on a bowtie with a new trw 327 vette cam in a 350 for my chevelle! motor didnt last a month, wont cam or lifters was rods again,...pulled cam out with lifters and put them in a junkyard 305,...couple mouths rods again!! them damn heavy chevys hard on rods with a teen agers right foot!!
 
RustyRatRod said:
You can argue what's correct and what's not till the cows come home, the FACT is, LOTS and LOTS of people have put random lifters on random lobes for DECADES and never had an issue.
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And there is a reason for that. And that is each lifter even though it is in its own spot, is dimensionally and mathematically in the same environment as each other lifter in the same motor.
This does not say that every motors lifter bore position and every camshaft and every lifter in every motor is 100% in specification. Outliers exist.
The fact is as long as everything is as it should be, lifters and cam lobes don’t care if they get mixed.
 
my68barracuda said:
And there is a reason for that. And that is each lifter even though it is in its own spot, is dimensionally and mathematically in the same environment as each other lifter in the same motor.
This does not say that every motors lifter bore position and every camshaft and every lifter in every motor is 100% in specification. Outliers exist.
The fact is as long as everything is as it should be, lifters and cam lobes don’t care if they get mixed.
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Yup. It's called variance and tolerance. As long as they are within those, they should live fine.
 
The O.P. has probably installed the old mis-matched lifters and run the engine for 20,000 miles by now.
Lol!
But seriously, if the lifters look okay on the bottom with slight wear and are still slightly convex, I would just stab 'em in there, and they should be fine.
If any of them have abnormal wear, it's new cam and new lifters time anyway........
 
I’ve mixed em up before and just sent it. But never on an engine I care too much about. The problem is those engines are the ones that seem to last tens of thousands of miles and you can’t kill em. Maybe I’ve been doing it wrong all this time.
:lol:
 
Barely used is one thing.
All depends on the amount $ time spent
On a fractional rebuild.
He do what each wants.
If you don't have time to accept a possible failure
Down the line. Get new lifters.
Not from China


Dave
 
RustyRatRod said:
Most likely, as long as they all have a good wear pattern, they'll sling back in and run fine. What I would do in that instance is lube them up good with some ZDDP camshaft lube and break them in kinda like new. High idle for a few minutes. They'll probably be fine.
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Rusty does this mean that you would disassembly an engine mix up the rod and main bearings and run it. Kinda the same thing, not trying to be a smart ***.
 
512Stroker said:
Rusty does this mean that you would disassembly an engine mix up the rod and main bearings and run it. Kinda the same thing, not trying to be a smart ***.
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I wouldn't do it on purpose. If somehow I had one apart and intended to reuse the bearings and they got mixed up, hell yeah I'd sling um back in there. After measuring and inspecting of course.
 
512Stroker said:
Rusty does this mean that you would disassembly an engine mix up the rod and main bearings and run it. Kinda the same thing, not trying to be a smart ***.
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He might not, but I might back in the day. lol
I did what I had to do and it worked 99% of the time.
 
RustyRatRod said:
I wouldn't do it on purpose. If somehow I had one apart and intended to reuse the bearings and they got mixed up, hell yeah I'd sling um back in there. After measuring and inspecting of course.
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Here is way we differ.
If the engine were to fail from this practice and needed to be removed from the car for repair it just hurts to much, this old body can't do it anymore.
I have learned now to play it safe, when in doubt replace.
Now if I was a spry young rooster like you well......................
 
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