lifter crown?

how much crown should be on a valve lifter and how would you measure it ? this would be on a 88 oliver

you can check it on a piece of glass,it should rock a small amount.(cheapest straight edge I have found)

you will ruin a nice fancy cam if not right !!!!!!

Some of the mushroom type are flat with no crown because they have a big enough od to make them rotate. I sent my old ones out of my 88 to Bullet and he returned them with the reground cam and said they were fine and didn't need to be refinished. I would talk to someone like Sonny at Bullet cams to be sure. Barrel style are usually high in the center.

I'm pretty sure they should be flat. At least dad had me lap them flat for all our engines

all flat tappet lifters have a small crown about.002 the best company for regrinding these is in north Carolina, as they made lifters for nascar if you call me 618 975 8645 I will give u their no.

(quoted from post at 16:59:16 02/25/16) how much crown should be on a valve lifter and how would you measure it ? this would be on a 88 oliver

Click to expand...

Lifters are an interesting item. Until I took up the hobby of antique tractors, I made the assumption all lifters were ground with a radius, just enough to make a crown and rock slightly (approx .001) on a flat surface. When my first set of tractor lifters returned from regrind, the ridged wear pattern was gone, but they were flat as a pancake. I figured, well its better than nothing, at least the cam returned from re-grind with a parkerized coating. The next set of lifters from another shop were also flat and we looked at other lifters in stock, they were all flat, the same with the cam, no taper. So, I looked for information on antique engines and what I found was that in early designs with relatively light spring pressure and more available space, engineers could offset the cam lobe to lifter centerline enough to establish lifter rotation which meant crowned lifters with tapered cam lobes were not required. As engines became more compact and performance increased, engineers had to use crowned lifters in order to maintain lifter rotation and tapered lobes to set desired cam thrust. Therefore, as mentioned in earlier posts, it is not a good idea to mix the two technologies, it can create a significant increase in point loading, leading to rapid wear and early failure.

got a set from bullet cam a couple of years ago and they had a slight crown for a oliver , but didnt measure it , i am working with a used cam and wondering what would be the best to get them reground figured out how to do it myself with a drill press and a table grinder just need to know how much crown to put on them

All of the engines that I work on use a slightly tapered cam lobe to spin the lifter, not apply cam thrust. The bevel gears meshing up front, combined with the driving torque of the camshaft maintain a moderate load on the cam thrust washer, which is oil fed. The bucket style lifters in my engines get ground flat, since if they become "crowned" they will then drag on the cam lobe...

Regards,

Goldsburg