FWIW this is what I did -- I'm no expert -- just my rationale.
My original equipment lifters were reground, hardened and Rockwell
tested by the cam grinder. He made the point to me that the real concern
was that both the cam and the lifters were of equal hardness. That is,
no matter how hard they both were, if one was softer than the other
there would be a problem, or at least a potential problem. Is that true?
Who knows -- it's what he told me.
My reason for regrinding the OEM lifters was not cost. I hoped I stood a
better chance of getting good lifters by regrinding and using the
original equipment rather than after market new ones. I am the original
owner, so I know they are original equipment. The lifters were still in
very good condition -- only a couple had a few pits. The TR250 has 60K
miles and I changed the oil religiously: 2.5K miles. But I will say that
if my OEM lifters had been bad, I would have bought new ones and sent
them to the cam grinder.
I thought it a good idea to have both the lifters and cam be of the same
hardness and hardened/checked by the same person. If anything goes
wrong, there'll be no finger pointing -- "all roads lead to Rome".
The cam was from a new Chilled Cast Iron Billet -- $312.00. I did that
because I wanted a large lobe diameter and understood the new billets
were harder than a regrind.
Maybe this was overkill. I don't really know exactly what I'm doing, so
I am usually in an "ask a million questions" and "cover your a.." kind
of mode. But then I guess one would have to do many many engine
rebuilds, and do many of them incorrectly before they would be working
with first hand knowledge, and not hearsay.
So, are my cam and lifters really of the same hardness? Did he really
hardness check them? The guy has a good reputation so I assume he did,
but who knows for sure -- guess we'll find out.
:-)
Don Malling
Cliff Davies wrote:
> David,
> I am with you I just bought the same list of stuff
> from BPNW. To add to it, my local supplier who I
> had asked about all of this "bad lifter" stuff
> said that most of the problem is incorrect cam
> break-in. I was not comfortable with his "County
> brand" pistons etc so
> I went to BPNW. I know there must be many of us
> that have bought BPNW lifters they can't or
> wouldn't sell soft lifters that are going to wreck
> everyone's rebuilds?
>
> Cliff
> Lifters still wrapped in brown paper...
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