Holy **** where do I start on this one. Ok, decided to try this tool out as well.
1st car used on, had a little bind sliding in, so my friend ground the ends just a little to ease its progress. Worked fine going in, held the lifters, we even tried to push them down with slight pressure. Good deal right?...

2d car, we tried to slide them in, no problem, figured the extra grinding from earlier was working. No further problems.

3rd car, oh ya gotta appreciate a good tool. Started to slide the tools in, little bind on drivers side, felt like it was hitting the side of the lifter on #6. The left side (yes as your looking at the front) went in about 6inches and bound up. Pulled them out, looked at the wear on them, got to love aluminum as its soooo forgiving. We decided to sand/dremel down the edge where the radius meets the flat portion. Well after a few trials, we finally got it right, or so we thought. Started sliding them in and there was a hint of bind, but with barely and wiggling it went right in sitting flush against the front. Pulled the cam, put new one in and heres the interesting part. Went to pull the nice new hi tech lifter tools out and....WTF. it wont come out. Ok, boys step aside let me try....nope, WTH and a bunch of other flowery words abound. So, resorted to using a pry bar to push against the little aluminum handles. Wor dof advoice, the handles are aliminum: read they do not hold a lot of pressure on them! Yep, one broke off, guess that its not a 1pc design huh? Ok, take the vice griips out, lock em down and start pryig against them, about 3/8ths inch at a time, but it worked. The other side was worse, broke the handle, started bending the end of the rod, and only moved about 1/8th inch with each pry, no **** that was it. You can imagine the relief we had after destrying a set of $90 used twice before tools, yes indeed we were very happy as they were no longer stuck in the block! After that, all went smooth.

Bottom line, I think these tools are a good idea for those with miiles on their cars and are worried about lifters dropping, but with no ore than 25k on any of the 3 cars, I wouldnt suggest it.

Just my experience with this tool, hope it helps some out.

Charlie.

 

Is this tool achually used to pull the lifters or does it just hold them in place while swapping cams?

 

Well...Ill tell you guys what we use. about 24" of steel 1/8 rod with self adhesive backed loop velcro wrapped around it. Its softer and gives alot more..plus holds direct tension on the lifter. Every couple of swaps you have to replace the velcro. But thats cheap.
The rods were just laying around Vinces garage and I had the velcro...so it was a free tool. Hasnt let me down yet.

 

Well nuts.... I was thinkin' about buying this tool....but at the price it is, I'll probably do magnets I guess.

 

I want to make sure I understand this right. I havent been keeping up with alot in the way of Ls1 progress. As far as I knew you couldnt get the lifters out without removing the heads. This tool only holds them up so you can swap the cam? is that right?

I am hoping that someone will find a way to get the lifters out WITHOUT pulling the heads of. I need to replace my lifters but REALLY dont want to tear the heads off to do it.

 

Yeah the tool is designed to hold the lifters up, in the event that the keepers fail. Thought it would worth the extra insurance. HELL NO.
Now with only couple uses on them total junk. dont even think you could use for a pattern to cut new ones.
383, you wrap the velcro all around or just on one prtion of the bar? Got velcro, and 1/8" rod!

 

Cat...I intitally wrapped velcro around it all the way. But it was a bit tight going in. So the next time I wrapped it about 2/3 the way around and made sure the velcro portion was facing the lifter when inserted since thats the portion that should make contact with the lifter and "give" a little to ensure good contact are.

When i say wrap ...i am saying lay the rod out on a table....lay an equal lenght of velcro along the rod and cut it. The wrap the rod lenghtwise keeping the velcro parralel to the rod and roll it around it. NOT as if you were wrapping header wrap or wrapping wires with electrical tape round and round. This keeps the width of the rod uniform with the velcro applied.

And really..once you get the hang of it and get the idea...you can come up with all sorts of material to use for the same purpose. Maybe something better than velcro.

I was actually going to try the rubber coating that you dip tool ahndles with. It forms a flexible coating that gives slightly but is fairly sturdy. Uou could just continue to add coats by dipping the rod until its the right width.

 

Yep, got it thanks again. Now I wanna change cams again so I can try this out!

 

Cat3,

You can come do mine!!!!

(Always willing to help out....)

Kevin

 

Kevin, my brother and I have done about 10 cam installs now. If you ever need help, let me know!

 

Kevin, might be easier to get Levi over there. Dont know next time I will be that way, hehehe. I am from Michigan originally though.

Al, would there be any precautionary statment to use a wood dowel rather than a stell rod? Figure lighter, and easier to handle. Smooth it out, and wrap it?

 

I dont know. I would be leary about wood. If it did get stuck it could be a mess,lol.

 

We ran into a simmular problem recently, the problem seems to be that GM went to using a Comp styled lifter/body, I'm guessing when Crane Cams was bought out by Fed Mogul and it took them about 3-4 months to re-organize in house and GM went to Comp for lifters for there engine production in the interum. The original tools were designed for the earlier used Crane lifters that don't share the same type of lifter design/body and work perfectly well with the Cranes styled lifters.

Solution:
Re-design to be able to be used with both types of lifter bodies Crane and Comp, please call us in the future if this problem arises in your particular application/production date, I am on stand by to exchange for the correct re-designed tool for that problem along with overnight shipping if needed to anyone that runs into this problem in the future, the new tool superseeds and phases out the old tool in light of this problem. JMX at www.ls1howto.com
just used a new set over last weekend and he had -0- issues with it.

Joe.

 

Joe, can I send in my remnants, all the pieces are there? Theres only 4pieces, the little handles snapped off and the bent bars? Would love to have a set of new universal JPR's. It worked on mine and my friends, but the damn Pontiac....dayum those lifter changing guys..
Have you ever seen these tools snap the handles off inside your daily driver, and realize they may become part of the engine forever? Scary, down right make you sweat real wuick tryign not to panic scary.

 

CAT3,
Send them back to the addy in your e-mail and I will replace them at no charge and reimburse your shipping. We have used those tools in house about 6 times and about 10 sets in the feild and never snaped off a set, if that much force was needed to install them into the motor then obviously something was wrong.


Joe.

 

JPR has great customer service!

 

Joe, didnt get an address, or accidentally deleted not looking thru "junk mail", could you pm it to me here? thanks. Thats the funny thing at first there was some force to get them in, and figured maybe a lifter wasnt holding up, but after verifying, and tryign again, they went in easy, but holy moley it was bullet sweating time when the handle broke. You know how hard it is to keep your cool when this happens and a customer or friend is standing there?? Wow, good thing is we all kept our wits and got em out.

I agree, excellent customer service.

 

How can we tell if we have the new design? I got mine from Thunder racing last Month and they look like the ones in JMX's pic. We used them on my friends 98 w/ no problem but I want to make sure if i use them on any other year they will work w/ the possiblity of the different lifter design.

JR

 

CAT,
Mail sent again, the first one was a PM.

Joe.