Adjustable Lifters
So I started a new project with Buddy Walker to make some adjustable lifters for our Flathead Caddies. Here is a shot of what the lifter assemblies look like and what we are starting with.
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The goal here is to make an adjustable solid lifter because the hydro lifters tend to float up at higher R.P.M.’s …well at least that is what I have been told. So I had it in my head that I could just throw a little jam nut on a the shaft of a threaded head and call it a day. Easy enough.
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I was not understanding the fact that you could not adjust it because the whole plunger assembly would just spin - there is nothing to keep the plunger assembly from spinning inside the lifter body. Not sure if it was the third or fourth time Buddy was trying to get his point across but finally something clicked and it started making sense.
So the key to the design was trying to get the lock nut or jam nut to be part of the lower piece. We looking at a few options.. we could weld it. I did not like this option for a couple reasons, one, welding can get expensive if you are going to make more than a couple sets, and two, my welding at least, leaves a bigger margin of error than machining does not.
Then we were throwing around the idea of recessing the nut in the lower portion. But again there are a few problems, one if you recess half of a jam nut there is not much left to grip on to when you are trying to make adjustments. The other problem is that it would leave you will a very thin walled piece in the lower section which made me uncomfortable.
So this is what I came up with. I figured out a way to make my own center lock nut and machine it as part of the lower piece. That cuts down on the number of pieces we need, two instead of three, and all parts are strong and beefy. Now the down side is I think there will be a limited number of times you could adjust them, but I think that number is large enough to make this a viable piece to our motors.
We will see, now we need to do some testing.
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Here you can see the stock lifter on the right and the stock lifter height +.045 on the left.
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If you are interested I can be reached by PM on the H.A.M.B. by my name “keeper”.
