Flakey lifter wear
 

This is a picture of one of the lifters in my 2012 Road Glide - they all have similar appearances. It looks like a sort of plating that is wearing off in a random pattern but I can't feel any edge to the shiny versus frosted area. I used a virgin x-acto knife blade and dragged it across the edge of the shiny to frosted and vice versus - I can tell you that the frosted area catches the knife blade point frequently but the shiny part that looks like plating does not. The cams look relatively normal as far as wear goes. Now for the question - WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE? I use Mobil one 20W50 VTwin oil.
I am putting in Andrews 57 cams and I want good lifter life.


For you photo bugs out there - taken with a Sony Nex5N using a Micro - Nikkor 55mm 1:3.5 at Asa 100 8 sec time exposure at f32 - great depth of field yes?

The main problem with that issue is the hard surfacing is totally gone from the roller wherever you see frost. That's not good at all as it will create abnormal wear on the roller and the cam lobe.

Further, the irregular surface the cam lobe is riding on will now show abnormal wear but as you are replacing the cams not a big deal.

FYI the new lifters are now made in Mexico by the lowest bidder so I would get them changed out with the cams asap. Like right now-- those crumbed flakes are going somewhere in your motor and I hope it's the filter and/or the oil drain plug magnet.

Price of new lifters high to lower are Woods, S&S, Gatermans -- many others also that are made in the good old US of A that I can't recall.

Some use chevy small block lifters but I don't know the spec. Users of those give a thumbs up and they are cheap-- like $15 each as I recall.
You could do a search and find out more info.

i gotta remember the chevy lifters part number...

Gm lifter part number 17122490. I'm a dealer tech and they cost me 120 bucks for 4. Pretty satisfied with the performance of them. If I had it to do over, probably would have went with the s&s. The suffix "b" Hd lifters are the best from Harley. The suffix "c" lifters are the Mexican made garbage. From what I've seen, the op has the most common "c" lifter problem...

thanks man. i went with woods lifters this time around but ill use the gm lifters as an option for customers

Fwiw, I had to go 4 turns from zero to get em quiet...

Bearing wear
 

If this is a 2012 lifter, I can't imagine what my 2010 must look like. The wear you show on this lifter shows the lack of quality HD has allowed to creep into the inventory based on cost vs. longevity factors. It's a toss up. They are using sub-standard parts from off-shore vendors (yes...low cost Mexican manufacturing) that simply lack the quality control a US based company would have.

Thank you for displaying the lifter via excellent quality photo. Will you be able to show the cam lobes as well? This would be where the truth lies.

Cheers.

from the picture it looks like the lifter had a coating of moly on it and it is just wearing off...

appreciate it

I got 16 of those LS1 lifters. Need to start sellin em to buddies doing cams. HD ones dont look good.