Some time ago you called Bill Scott for more information regarding our article on valve guide wear and rocker box oil flow in the May-June issue. In order to avoid telling the same story repeatedly to every caller, Bill told you that a follow-up article on the subject would appear in the next issue (July-August). The reason for the follow-up article was that, to our dismay, Kas did not present all of our findings in the first story. We advised him that because of that major omission, we were receiving many phone calls from his subscribers who had additional questions. He agreed then that another article was necessary and knew that we were advising each of you accordingly. We have now learned, as have you, that despite our being told repeatedly that the article would appear, Kas did not print it. Not only that, but he did not even notify us that it would not appear until we called him to ask when we could proof read it.
The article you read in the May-June issue told only half of the story, and the least important part at that. Why Kas did not elect to tell the entire story we simply do not know. The fact is that he had all of the information available and for some reason did not use it.
The untold part of the story has to do with oil flow paths and with hydraulic lifter design. We not only correlated low oil flow to the rocker boxes with increased valve guide wear, but also discovered the exact problem in the oil system/lifter design that caused it. It was this latter information, the design itself, that was the real meat of the story. As we said, for reasons we do not understand, Kas did not cover this in the first story, and has now failed to write the follow-up that he had promised, despite knowing that many of his customers were expecting it. He is (and has been all along) very uncommunicative and we have not been able to understand why he has elected to do this. It appears, however, that the second part of the story will not be published.
Accordingly, we have written the attached article just for TBO Advisor subscribers who called us for information. We wanted to give you at least some of the data that Kas did not. After all, you took the time to read the article and to call us and we think you are owed something in return. The attached information contains much, but not all, of what Kas was supposed to print.
If you want to discuss this with Kas, feel free. Unfortunately, we have given up on him. Very frankly, our first-hand experience with Kas Thomas has been hugely disappointing and we have told him so in writing. He can be reached days at 203-834-0330 and evenings at 203-762-8245.