I've always heard you were supposed to change lifters when you changed a cam... but I was reading a chilton's book about rebuilding chevy small blocks, and they said lifters could be re-used as long as they passed certain "tests" they didn't however say whether that was only if you were re-using the same cam.
I will be changing the cam, but the lifters look like they are brand new, you can't feel anything on the bottoms, and you have to look closely at them and only in certain light, you can BARELY see any marks on the bottom of them. Can they be re-used?

 

Lifters are fairly cheap, I would just get another set... the lifters and cam wear into eachother differently for every lobe of the cam, so it is important they are not switched around. I'm no pro though...

 

Roller lifters can be reused with other cams but flat tappets should always stay with the lobe they first installed on.

 

as said above, roller lifters you can reuse. flat-tappet lifters you can also reuse if you resurface them... I'd feel much better just forking out the $60-90 on a new set though. It's cheap insurance because if one fails you'll be buying a new cam and possibility a new motor when the metal shavings eat up your bearings.

 

Well i can tell you from personal experience NO!!! A buddy of mine reused the lifters in his truck and wore one of the cam lobes down . Unless you refinsh them i would pay the $50 to get new ones.

 

thanks everybody. I'll get some new ones, I figured thats what I would do, but since the engine had been gone through recently and the lifters looked new, I figured I'd ask :]

 

Roller lifters can be reused as long as they spin smoothly.

There are essentialy 2 different types of flat tappet lifters (besides hydraulic and solid) that determine the proper procedure.

Most lifters are the first type, they are Non-hardened and need to be replaced or refaced. This can also change rocker alignment depending on how much material is removed.


The second type are hardened. You can tell them apart as the face and a few mm of the body are a darker grey color than the rest of the lifter. With these you simply break out the sine sand paper (600-800 grit) and work the faces over until any wear patern present is replaced with a consistant texture, similar to cross haching a cylinder.

Dont confuse the grey hardend coloring with blueing (blue coloring at the face) from excess heat. In this case there is bound to be obvious dammage to the lifter and cam and even the rest of the motor.

I dont know off the top of my head the range of use the hardend lifters saw in GM's but I do know that my Mazda uses hardened tappets