Inliners International Forums General Discussion Hi Performance 1954 chevy 235 solid lifter conversion to hydrauli

Can a solid lifter 1954 Chevrolet 235 be converted to hydraulic?

No, the hydraulic cams had its bearing journal diameters enlarged, so they wont fit into the solid lifter blocks. You will need a hydraulic lifter specific block. Does your block have the 15 bolt cylinder head or the 18 bolt head. I would double check the date code on the block to verify the year, by 1953 most all Stovebolts were hydraulic equipt.

I dont know, but here is a tale involving a similar happening.

Back in high school a buddy and I swapped out cams and their lifters. His was a stock hyd setup on a '57 140 hp 235, and mine was a stock solid setup on a '59 261 truck motor. After we did the swap immediately both engines began to blow blue oil smoke out of the tailpipes.

I thought the quiet hyds were nifty ('cept for all the oil smoke!) He thought all the lifter racket from the solids (as well as the oil smoke) would surely drive him bananas. So after a short few days we gladly went back to our original setups. And both our oil problems went away!

Never seen anyone else try this, and never knew what caused it. The hyds needed oil to operate and the solid setup were empty hollow lifters with solid round bar pushrods, perhaps the lifter galleries are drilled or sized differently to suit the specific cam/lifter. The hyd motors suffered a higher rate of burnt valves than the solid lifter motors. But the hyd lifters are sure nice and quiet.

Tony P, have you ever swapped lifters between the various blocks ?

As I remember, the 235 pass PowerGlide engines had hyds and more hp than the solid lifter std shift engines from 1950 through and including 1956. In the 1954 and later motors, the camshaft bearing dias increased ( maybe the solid shafts were increased to match the hyd shafts), and their material changed- such that prior to '54 the cams required the solid tappets to be chilled iron, '54 and later solid lifters needed to be a hardened steel material, also McGurk warned of the need to also use the correct distributor drive gear material to prevent them from ruining themselves as well as the cam. This is especially important when attempting to use a reground cam- what year or material is it ground on?

Lots of blocks have a year stamped/cast on the inside of the crankcase (true at least on 261s)

Ed

I've only used solid lifters.From what I'm told the hydraulics are troublesome.
Chilled iron milkbottle type go with steel cams,the hardenable iron lifters looking like typical more modern lifters go with cast cams.When in doubt,strike a file on the side of the lifter,chilled iron are soft on the side,hardenable iron is hard.
The 1970 GM master parts manual lists only one distributor gear from 1938 to 1962....doesn't seem right.....

it may well be a "service" part, not an original part, meaning, in this case this is a component made of material that would offer satisfactory wear with both cams.

My '58 GM master parts catalog shows two, it lists all '47-'53, and all '54(excpt P.G. and 261) as one part number (steel) 1865180... and'53-'55 vette, '54 pass w/ P.G., '54-'55 261 w/ 6 volt, and all '55-'58 all 6 cyl 12 volt as cast iron 1929578.

Yeah, they changed to a mutually compatible mystery material.

Greetings . . .

I don't see why not. Especially since I am not sure that there is really any distinction between '54 short blocks - or stovebolt short blocks in general. Take for example the transition from '52 to '53. The'52 power-glide engine (equipped with hydraulic lifters) was in used in '53 for stick cars with solid lifters (Floyd Clymer's "Cast Iron Wonder" documents this). The '53 power glide engines were the first to ship with full pressure oiling and insert bearings on the connecting rods. In Floyd's mind this was the end of the Cast Iron Wonder era . . . the stick cars the last of the era . . . the power-glides of the future . . .

1953 was also odd in that a 216 was non-existent in a car - but could be had in a truck.

By 1954 all of the short blocks where full pressure oiled cranks. So I don't see why cam/lifters/push-rods couldn't be interchanged TOGETHER freely . . .

But curiously there are two casting numbers 3835949 & 3835491 but me thinks one is for cars and the other is for trucks . . .

regards,
stock49

Greetings . . .

Perhaps I misspoke on this thread in that although the blocks are essentially the same there is additional machining to drill holes from the oil gallery into the lifter bores when hydraulic lifters are to be fitted. Whereas solids are lubricated by oil draining from the top end.

So it isn't a simple swap of cam/lifter/push-rods . . . some machining would be necessary.

regards,
stock49

Yeah and all the trucks sure had pitiful hp ratings - I think they had really low pro cams for low speed pulling, even the 261s were 140ish hp like.