Roller lifter conversion.

A few years ago I stumbled apon a conversation with a fellow who had a kit for the commando for drop in roller lifters. I have tried to contact him recently, and am awaiting a response. Has anyone heard of this or have a set? If so could I get some photo's. Just another idea tossing around.

Interesting. The only person I know who has done a roller lifter conversion for a Commando is Mike Libby, CR Axtell's business partner. When Axe retired, Mike carried on with the business, and after Axe died, Mike was still going. Last I knew he was operating the business out of a hanger at Whiteman Airport in Pacoima (San Fernando Valley in California). He developed a set of roller lifters for Norton and for Triumph twins. Same lifters, but different adapter blocks. He installed one set in a local flat track Triumph, and it worked very well. He worked sporadically on a kit for several years, but never got it into production. Last time I talked to him, several years ago, he had got some estimates for having the pieces made in some quantity, but didn't have the finances to follow through. He had a very sick wife, and some financial difficulties, so had to spend his time on customer work that paid immediately, not do R&D on his own nickel. It was a pretty neat conversion, using adapter blocks in the lifter tunnels similar to those for fitting BSA lifters. The bottom of the blocks was machined so it guided the rollers, and kept them in line. He used some lifters left over from an old roller cam conversion for BSA Gold Stars that fit just fine. I used to bug him regularly about them, but finally gave up. I offered to buy his design and tooling, or to buy a batch of them and market them myself, but Mike just doesn't work that way. He's very independent, and goes his own way. He always did really high quality work, but could be a little difficult to deal with.

Ken, I talked to Mike a couple weeks ago; I should not go into details here but I can say that he's still in business and what the heck, give him a call, just for old time's sake. I'm sure he'd love to hear from you. PM me if you need his current number.