Triumph Repair: valve lifters, piston skirt, piston pins

Question
Hi Howard,
I have two questions, concerning my 74 1500. I'm taking apart my engine because I was getting crankcase pressure blowing oil out of the dip stick. The rings were failing doing a wet/dry compression test. First question is do you think it's ok to just get a set of pistons already fitted with rings; they don't cost that much or should I just replace the rings? The other question is, when I was removing the lifters, the last lifter I pulled out I heard a rattling noise, turned the lifter upside down and a screw fell out. Turns out it's the screw on the rocker shaft. I'm not sure what kind of damage was done but I was going to replace the lifters and push rods just in case. Can you put new lifters on a old cam shaft?
Thanks so much for your help and time,
Bill

Answer
Hi Bill,
Just rings or pistons and rings is a clear cut answer by looking at the cylinder bore condition (no ridge at the top after a cylinder hone is used to deglaze the cylinders and carefully examination of the pistons for excess ware in width of the ring groves, the clearance between the cylinder wall to the piston skirt and the condition of the skirts. The piston pins need to be looked at too.)
Long feeler gauge between the piston skirt and the cylinder wall and move the piston up and down the wall to see if the cylinders are tapered too much.

To get a good idea what needs to be done you need to read my "Tech Tip" on "engine rebuild" at
http://mg-tri-jag.net/techindex.htm  Go down to #10 and click on "Open". Read every page (5 pages)

As far as putting new lifters on a used cam, It can be done but you need to examine the cam lobes very carefully as to their condition and use "Cam Lube" on the face of the lifter and cam lobes. I have done it before without a failure but other mechanics I have talked to over the years say they have seen failures too but I don't know what their conditions were. As a extra precaution when I have to do that type of assembly I always add a can of STP to the oil too. If you have any pits or groves in the cam lobes you are asking for trouble. Keep all the other lifters numbered so they go back on their own cam lobe. (This is very important)
Howard