<VV> lifters...

[mark at noakes.com]

I've continued to dig around on info for the lifters as to what/why.

Federal Mogul/Sealed Power won't talk to consumers...only vendors.

I pinged Clarks but I think they went to the convention so some of you 
may have better luck than I till they get back

However...

I found this on the Crane Cams web site:

Do Hydraulic Lifters Need to be Primed with Oil?
Many people mistakenly believe that hydraulic lifters must be soaked 
in oil overnight and be hand pumped up with a pushrod before installing 
into a new engine, however this is not necessary. In fact, this could 
cause the lifter to act as a solid and prevent obtaining proper 
preload. What is very necessary is the priming of the entire engine’s 
oil system before starting up a new engine for the first time. This is 
done by turning the oil pump with a drill motor to force oil throughout 
the entire engine. Crane Cams offers oil pump primers for Chevrolet and 
Ford engines.

http://www.cranecams.com/?id=3&show=faq

On a few hobby forums (Chevelle in particular), I noted similar 
comments about damaging the cam because the primed hydraulic lifter 
acts like a solid...nobody explained why it was fine when that was 
acceptable practice for decades though.

Digging around on sites referencing Sealed Power lifters and priming, 
I got the impression that they were afraid people would over do it and 
damage something in the priming...though I forgot to save the specific 
link.  It's hard to imagine that someone priming a lifter would put 
more force on it than a valvetrain in use though...maybe off axis 
alignment matters?

The car appears to be running fine so I don't think I hurt anything 
starting it on one unprimed lifter, and the purpose of the moly was to 
keep it till things came up to pressure; I didn't mean to create a 
ruckus over a few questions.  I think I'll lay low for a year or two...

This is just a placeholder engine anyway.

Thanks for the input,

Mark Noakes