Hydraulic lifters
 

I have 2 sets of NOS GM lifters that I decided to take a sample from and examine more closely. The attached pics illustrate what I found on several lifters from each set. Not sure what the black area is on the outside of the lifter body in pic A. Thought it might just be something that would wipe off, but it does not. The top rim of the lifter in pic B seems to be crudely finished. It seems to have various nicks, scrapes , etc. Not sure what the pic C of the foot of the lifter tells me.

I don’t deal with these things often enough to know what to expect them to look like. I thought every surface of the entire lifter would be surgically pristine and perfect, but maybe that is unrealistic.

Do you guys see any problems here?

As long as the blemish in A has no high spots then that’s not an issue, and the same with B.

I don’t see any issue with the foot of the lifter either.

Even though the are in GM boxes I would still Mic them to confirm they are not undersized.

They are Chebby lifters. And they have Stellite pads on the bottom, very hard material, that lasts longer. Although Chebby lifters, they will work ok in Pontiac engines unless the cam has a very small base circle, which could allow the bottom of the lifter oil band to be exposed below the lifter bore.

Like Geoff said just confirm that when the lifter is on the base circle of the Cam that the oil band on the lifter is at least.060” from being exposed at the Cam end of the lifter bore.

If the base circle of your Cam has been reduced you gain more lift ( like over .480” ) then there may be an issue of the oil band coming too close to dropping out.

There diameter should be .842” and especially if you have lifter bores that are a tad worn.

Worn bores can bleed off a lot of oil pressure when your oil is up to temp not to mention that lifter wobble will accelerate lobe ware.

5232265 is a Pontiac classic V8 standard hydraulic lifter, NOT Chebby.

Hydraulic lifters
 

These will be used with an nos 068 cam I dug up in my stash so I’m guessing that should make a good combo, correct?

A fresh new 068?

If your motor is a 455 that cam is ripe for 1.65 rockers.

Old NOS PMD Lifters ( "Hydraulic Valve Tappet Assembly" ) 5230620 for Reference: Same 0.459 Group

Hydraulic lifters
 

The cam and lifters are both nos in the original GM packaging. Plan to use them on the rebuild of the original 389 from my 66 GTO.