Hydraulic cam followers

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by rah rah 986

I'm hoping some one could respond to the op's question and give some clarity. It does seem that lifters removed from a fresh tear down vary in their movement. some have a fair amount of spring travel, and some are completely ridged with oil pressure. Which is correct? And if reassembling the engine, should the lifters be installed without being pre-pumped with oil-allowing full spring travel, or, should they be pre-pumped with oil making them ridged upon reinstalling?

Where to begin..........these lifters/cam followers have a "dead end" oil passage design, meaning that once oil gets in, it often cannot get out again, leading to degradation in place, not to mention becoming a receptacle for any debris that is in the oil galley. This results in some lifters becoming solid objects that won't pump.

But now to get to your question, and that of the poster you quoted; you should not be mixing lifter/cam follower locations when using used parts from one engine, or taking them out of one engine and putting them in another. These units take a wear pattern to match that of the cam lobe they have been riding on, moving them to another lobe means they need to re-wear to their new location, which is not a good idea. Both Jake and I commented above on the criticality of the "crown" of the lifter, which promotes proper rotation and reduces wear on both the follower and the cam itself; wearing in the lobes and followers a second time can be very bad news to both.

When disassembling one of these systems, you should be keeping the followers in the correct order to put them back where they came from, or tossing the old units and using all new. In either case, I prefer to hand pump them before installation, and always coat the wear surfaces on the followers and the cam lobes with a good quality flat tappet break in grease to limit excessive wear on start up and break in. Every cam company sells this stuff, so it is easy to find.

Scrounging up used pieces from multiple engines to make one good one is never a good idea, that is how Frankenstein got started, and we know how that worked out.