Lifter questions with 1954 Buick Century

[Hot Rod Jim]

Good evening all! Pardon my first post here, I'm trying to find a bit more information from more seasoned and tempered sources of knowledge in regards to replacement lifters for my '54 Century and the old 322 that keeps me on my toes at every turn.

 

Long story short:

This all started out at the end of last fall, I had a lifter that was consistently bleeding down and ticking unless run for some time (at least 30 minutes of good driving). I decided to tear into it over the winter and see what I could find. A compression check while I was at it showed me that the passenger side of the engine is starting to wear out, 2 cylinders are lower than I would've liked, but the car ran beautifully otherwise. I tend to think that since it sat for close to 30 years, there was some surface rust and pitting that probably is affecting that.

 

Fast forward to last week when I finally got around to pulling the lifters. About 6 out of 8 on the passenger side have what appears to be galling on the surface of the lifter (or it was heavily rusted), but the camshaft itself is smooth and shiny (good old forged steel I suppose!). Today I removed the driver's side set, and only 2 had light pitting/galling with no indications on their respective cam lobes (even when rotating the cam).

 

Now with that said, NOS lifters are pretty much impossible to find, and everyone I talk to says that new replacement lifters are meant more for the cast iron '56 cam, and that I should just swap the cam while I'm there and run all '56 cam/lifters/pushrods (due to the length difference). For S's and giggles, I ordered a "reproduction" replacement set from CARS (Old Buick Parts out of NJ), which they came are made for the '53-'55 cam. Looking at the part numbers, the '56 sets are a completely different number and set. I'm still waiting on them to arrive to inspect them further. Has anyone tried just replacing the lifters with these "reproduction" sets and had them last without any wear issues? Another thought I had was to have a local machine shop see if they could resurface the old lifters and possibly salvage them if they aren't too badly pitted, and if need be run adjustable pushrods.

 

I'm torn with just swapping right to the '56 set due to having to pull the entire front of the car and motor apart, and then eventually having to pull the engine at some point to have it rebuilt. For now the idea was to just change the lifters and get the car back up and running for the season (which will probably only be driven maybe 3-5K miles in total), and in the spring pick up a '55 322 that is local to me just rebuild completely so I can literally pull the old one and swap in the new one with minimal down time.

 

Any thoughts and suggestions on this? Bad idea overall, or other ideas I may have overlooked? I appreciate the feedback, and thank you!

 

Jim

[KAD36]

I’ve swapped the 56 lifters and pushrods into a 55 with stock cam to quiet down stuck lifters from shed sitting and drove it probably 20,000 miles (over 10 years) with no issues until a bigger headache was desired and chose a full rebuild to provide that.  They also had visible wear pattern and some galling.  Obviously if going the 56 route you have to swap all 16 of both pushrods and lifters as they are a matched length.  Are you looking to swap only the worn lifters, and is it more economical to do that? If you are looking for advice on wear some pictures might help get opinions.  What are your concerns with leaving it alone for 3-5K miles if the engine is being replaced in the near future?  
 

The swap is typically not recommended for high mileage longevity but depending how you use the car you can get away with it. When I pulled mine apart years later there was no visible wear and I would have run it another 20.  Use good quality motor oil.  Do your research on additives or not.  I’ll avoid that discussion, thank you.  It’s like the radial tire question. 🤣. Good luck with the project 

[Hot Rod Jim]

Thanks for replying!

I searched high and low for quite a bit trying to find if there were any compatibility between the early cam and later/aftermarket lifters and kept coming back to the same crossroad. I didn’t won’t to go the full cam replacement route at first, but Matt Martin and a few others talked me into just replacing everything with the later ‘56 cam/lifter/pushrod set, and honestly it really did make more sense. I think I was hoping to get away with a quick solution, but probably best to just do it right. 
 

One thing I did notice was that the newer updated pushrod set has a hollow center to allow oil travel from the lifters. The original solid pushrods in mine had quite a bit of wear, and I’m guessing that thanks to years of sitting, old oil sludge, and the previous owners desire to run 15w-40 Rotella diesel oil in everything, the oil galleys leading to the rocker arm assembly were probably clogged a bit and really didn’t see much oil in those parts. The new setup looks like it will actually move oil from the lifters up the pushrods to the ball tips to help reduce wear in those areas. I tend to agree with you on the oil bit, and at the Martin’s suggestion (and thanks to my own personal experience with it) I’m back on a standard 10w-30 VR1 with lots of zinc specifically for flat tapper cams. 

[KAD36]

When you do your full rebuild definitely replace cam lifters pushrods cam bearings and have the machine shop fit the bearings to the cam.  And you have some choices on cams.  The 56 stock cam if you can get one is great, most aftermarket cams are a “blended” profile to work across all years of 322s.  
 

My input on swapping the lifters/pushrods only for now was just an interim option if you wanted to address it, just to clarify.  Often the full engine rebuilds don’t start or finish on schedule.

[EmTee]

54 minutes ago, KAD36 said:

Often the full engine rebuilds don’t start or finish on schedule.

...or budget. 

[KAD36]

51 minutes ago, EmTee said:

...or budget. 

Omg ain’t that the truth.

[Hot Rod Jim]

8 hours ago, EmTee said:

...or budget. 

Well said! This all started last fall because of what I thought was a leaky valley cover gasket and a bit of oil that kept making a mess every time I drove it, back then I thought I would only be replacing gaskets!

[EmTee]

Listen to Ken (KAD36) - as he said, he has been through all of this before (at least a couple of times)... 

[Hot Rod Jim]

I think I should be squared away for a bit, I ended up returning the CARS lifter set (worked out since they didn’t actually have them in stock when i ordered them) and getting a new ‘56 cam, ‘56 lifters, matching pushrods, and a new timing chain set from Matt Martin. That frees me up a bit to concentrate on the second ‘55 322 that I’ll be getting in a little while, and that one I will be doing the complete tear down and overhaul. At least this way if the local machine shop gets backed up, I’m not in any rush and can take my time. I keep resisting all of the locals and other friends that say I should just SBC or Chevy LS swap it, because it’s such a unique and, dare I say, one darn pretty motor to see under the hood these days. 

[KAD36]

That’s good to hear and sounds like a reasonable approach.  If you want to get fancy in the future, there are folks on the HAMB forum who took a 401 cam and turned down the journals to fit the 322 and said they liked the results.  Although I am not sure how many folks would try that experiment and say they hated it if it didn’t work.  
 

Not being an expert, but I have used and “dialed in” a cam from Centerville on my first full rebuild because the specs were not published and I wanted to know what I was buying.  I did all the math more than once and had my final calculations and measurement process independently “peer reviewed” at the machine shop to make sure I got it right after admittedly making some errors first time through.  It was different than the factory profile (apples to apples measurement methods from then to now) and had the same “blank” part number stamping as a current 401 stock replacement cam which suggested they all start with the same blank and mill their specific profiles on the blanks from there.  

 

That being said, the Centerville cam worked ok, it idled very smooth, which is what most folks want in their stock restorations, less remarkable change in drivability than I expected and I verified all other component measurements prior to install (although Old Tank got a ride and thought it pulled fairly well).  The Centerville lobe separation angle (LSA) was wider and lift and duration higher than stock.  If I had not been able to find a good 56 stock cam for my second rebuild that 401 cam profile was my next choice to try.  I rather like sound of the idle of the stock 56 cam which has a narrower LSA and “by the numbers” pulls the torque curve in earlier, lowered vacuum and slightly roughened the idle. My second rebuilt motor pulls from a stop better and gets to 70 more effortlessly than my first rebuild when you don’t want to diddle around. The cam is probably one of the contributors to the 1956 PSBs indicating that lower engine vac at idle (16 in Hg) compared to prior models should be considered normal.  I believe the difference in LSA was 114 deg on the Centerville cam to 110 or 111 stock 56 cam going off memory although understand all cam measurements need to work in harmony to achieve a good operating point.  Beemon kindly published the 56 322 cam specs somewhere on here while going through a similar exercise.
 

The car will run fine with the Centerville cam and hope you report back what you think after the swap. Careful putting it in so you don’t nick the cam bearings in the engine.

 

If you want to get more fancy pants, put in a set of 1.6:1 ratio rockers from a 401 for more lift, they will work (proven by demonstration) with the Centerville cam, but would advise doing the required math for other cam profiles to avoid valve spring bind or interference.
 

Bottom line - any aftermarket cam you get have awareness of the cam profile and consider it’s ability to make low end torque as close to off idle as possible if mated to a Dynaflow, especially a non switch pitch Dynaflow, unless you expect to do a lot of higher rpm spirited driving.  Also factory valve springs will tolerate higher lift of a generic aftermarket cam but some aftermarket springs will not, so get the spring bind specs and do some basic math.  That’s what my project taught me so passing it on - YMMV. Lots of articles out there advising what parameters work best for low end torque if you really want to get into it.
 

Or…go with Option 2: slap in vendor X replacement cam using good shop practices, fire it up and enjoy the ride. 😎

 

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by KAD36 (see edit history)

[Hot Rod Jim]

I had heard reports about the 401 cam with the cut down journals, although I can't say I ever came across anyone who was able to actually back up the claim with actual evidence. I can see LSA or lobe profile making a difference if they are drastic changes over stock. I believe the Martins did mention this on their website as well as an option for the more "adventurous".

 

Tomorrow I am going to break out my micrometer, dial calipers, and a few other instruments to see just how different it is in comparison to the stock '54 cam profile. More so for curiosity's sake I guess, especially in the area of overall lift since the '56 replacement seems to have a much smaller "base circle" in comparison to the '54 (at least by way of the old eyeballs). Some physical measurements should tell me for sure though, and whether the LSA is similar.

 

Also good information to know in regards to the valve springs. I've read more than a couple horror stories of people working with aftermarket springs that have ended up binding and snapping (or breaking rockers), and to that regard I don't see myself really trying to push the power output to a degree where I would (hopefully) need to look past stock on those. I may look at the 401 rockers for the other motor once I get it and start the overhaul and rebuild on that. Also good to keep in mind about the dynaflow, as mine definitely is not the switch pitch version.

 

I definitely appreciate the info though, much of this is getting hard to find these days. I can't even tell you how many times my searches end in dead ends or forums that no longer exist because everyone has moved to the dreaded social media groups, so this has been a blessing so far! Hopefully one day I can get a chance to see your Buick out and about KAD36, doesn't look like you're too far north of me. 👍

[KAD36]

8 hours ago, Hot Rod Jim said:

I can't even tell you how many times my searches end in dead ends or forums that no longer exist because everyone has moved to the dreaded social media groups, so this has been a blessing so far!

The bench depth of this forum team is beyond impressive, has kept my projects out of the ditch more than once.  Would be great to catch up sometime, it appears a short hop.  Maybe consider joining some of us at the Northeast Car Museum next time we go, EMTee and JD1956 aren’t too far up the road and Machine Gun even made the trek.  Let us know how the project goes, and would also be curious what you choose for pistons when that time comes.

 

I was able to find Beemons Cam Card for the stock 56 cam for reference if interested.

 

 

[avgwarhawk]

My 54 264 had a horrible rebuild the previous owner had done.  Failed valve seat that was installed and not necessary for nailheads.  Engine tapping and smoking.  I had to replace the heads. In doing so discovered the valve train was running 56 lifters, rods and cam. I only replaced the lifters. Very different rod lengths between 54-55 and 56. Shallow pocket lifters.  Reassembled the top end after honing and new rings. Drive on. 

[old-tank]

Ken's rebuild specs on my server:  HERE