MTFCA Forum

Doing a full rebuild on my 22 centerdoor engine. Everything shows minimal wear so i ordered standard adjustable lifters. The problem is they wont go into the block. They seem to be one or two thousandths too big. Suggestions? Is there a reamer out there that would work for this?

I would start with:

what exactly is the diameter of the lifters?
what exactly is the diameter of the lifter bores?

Fairly common. Tooling wore and the factory put undersize lifters in instead of replacing the tooling (or they made the guides undersize to use up undersize tappets). I’ve seen it probably about a dozen times. Run a 7/16” reamer thru the guides to take them from undersize to “standard” and your “standard” lifters will fit fine. There are a bunch of parts like these when you get into blueprints in the archives. They generally say something to the effect of “use when …. is undersize/oversize”.

Before you start reaming out the block, follow Scott's advice and measure the new lifters and make sure the vendor sent you the correct ones.

Thanks Adam. Thats exactly what i needed to know.

Measure twice, cut once. That hold true here as well.

I cut this damned board twice, and it’s STILL too short!

Mark, see if a local machine shop can hone the lifter bores for you instead of reaming.

It has been my experiences that most chucking reamers need a minimum of about 2% of the diameter (-in this scenario about 8 thousandths) to keep the flutes loaded during the cutting process. Otherwise, you generally get chatter marks in the bore finish which will lead to galling. Any performance machine shop should have a Lifter Hone, and likely two or three strokes will size them for your new lifters. If you cannot find a shop, then order a set of 0.015" over tappets (0.452) and purchase a 0.4535" Reamer from McMaster, and that should put your tappet clearance to around 0.0015 which should be perfect.