by spencerforhire » Wed Nov 22, 2017 8:17 am
I'm late to the party here, but Smiley is spot on with his advice. If the lifter is worn, so is the cam. Replacing one bad lifter could get you by for the short term, but will need to be adjusted frequently as it and the cam continue to wear. And as they wear, they will be putting metal shavings through the rest of the engine, accelerating damage everywhere. If it's an intake lobe, the engine will slowly lose power, but if it's an exhaust lobe, if it completely goes away, it will produce a nasty backfile through the carb.
Back in the day, we used to joke about 305's having "wooden camshafts". lol. A lot of failures due to many factors, including the aforementioned removal of Zinc from engine oil, poor quality castings and sloppy maintenance schedules(infrequent oil changes).
The "fleet"-
77 Vega Estate wagon- project(someday)will have TPI305/T-5, S-10 spindles/axles
72 Vega HB Drag Car -383/'Glide/9"(9.35@146.19)(5.94@117.28 1/8th)
76 Vega GT- 400/4spd/9" retired from active duty(rusty)
03 Silverado 2WD ex.cab (work truck/parts hauler)
04 Silverado 2WD ex.cab (retired)
06 Haulin' 20ft enclosed car transporter
93 Suburban- 350/4L60(retired)
00 Saturn SW2- wife's car
01 Saturn SC2- younger son's project
00 Saturn SL2- daughter's car
98 Saturn SW2- spare
and 3 more Saturn "parts cars"
Note- the very act of listing all of these has made me realize I have some kind of problem.....
Visit http://www.spencerforhire.ca