Anderson Motorsport's tappet tool
may look simple, but trust us it is worth its weight in gold.
At $60 the savings in time and intake gaskets makes it pay off
in one or two cam swaps.
We've taken the manifold off to
show you how AFM's Tappet Tool works, however in real
life there is no need to remove the manifold. High-powered
magnets, placed down the pushrod hole, pull the lifters
up enough to slide the cam out. |
How many of you have changed a camshaft?
Looks like most of you are raising both hands.
Changing cams is one of the core skills of any power addict.
Most of us have done more cams than we care to count. We all
probably would agree that the worst part of the job is having
to pull the intake manifold in order to remove the lifters.
With flat tappet lifters this is absolutely necessary, because
those lifters cannot be reused. However with roller lifters
being reusable it makes it even more irritating that we must
pull them out in order to slide in a new camshaft. What if
we could simply lift them up enough to get the old cam out
and new grind in? It's a thought that has crossed our minds
many times, but we've never dwelled on it enough to devise
a solution.
Well fortunately the guys at Anderson Ford Motorsport (AFM)
did stop to think. Being involved with numerous race engines
-their own and their clients', they realized the need to save
precious wrenching time while evaluating cams on the dyno,
or in a competition situation. Their solution is so ingenious,
yet simple, it makes us wonder why we didn't think of it first
Using a high-powered magnet, secured to the end of a long
carriage bolt, AFM came up with a clever tool to pull all
sixteen lifters high enough in the bore to clear the cam lobes.
The intake (lower intake on EFI motors) never comes off. At
about $60 for the set, the tool pays for itself in over two
hours of labor and gasket costs. It truly is a tool that makes
you wonder how you got by without one.
The tool is intended to only be used with roller lifters.
Flat tappet lifters should not be reused because they wear
a pattern with the cam lobe. Furthermore due to the shorter
height of flat-tappet lifters you run the risk of pulling
the lifter out of the bore using the magnet tool. With stock
roller lifters the tool pulls them up far enough in the bore
to clear and standard Windsor base-circle roller cam. If you
are using link bar type roller lifters, which usually require
removing the heads for removal, this tool provided even more
gasket and labor savings.
Follow along as we run through a cam swap on a late model
5.0L fuel-injected motor, with air, smog, and power steering.
We'd usually allot six to seven hours to this job, but this
tool enabled us to buzz through it in less than four. Continue
