Rocker arms STILL loose!!!!

donsbad68

Immensely Educated
Jan 4, 2003
838
0
0
Oklahoma
OK, Mr. Yount (sic) and many others have already told me to run the rocker arms in order and to try to pump them up by cranking the car with the coil wire off. I did so and checked after I pumped up about 20 lbs of pressure on the gauge and held it there for about 30 sec or so..... took off the valve cover......all are still loose :nonono: except for the ones with the valves open of course. This is getting fairly upsetting. Do I need longer pushrods or what?? There is about to be an 89 lx with a non-running new 306 on the market!! :mad:
 
Don't turn it over using the key, put a 1/2 rachet on the crank & turn it slowly doing em 2 rockers @ a time using someone watching & holding the rods down as you turn it "by hand" if your worried the bolts are backing out put allittle thread sealant or gasket sealer on the bolts prior or it be worse, it could be your cam, sure you don't got to stiff of valve springs on it.
 
What heads are they?
I actually think its normal for rockers they have no load on them to be able to move from side to side slightly,

Your gonna have to tell us,
What heads,
What Cam
What rockers
What pushrods
Pedestal or Stud mount
 
i did turn the crank by hand and follow the yount procedure when both where on their base circle, once this was done i cranked the motor to see if the lifters would pump up or anything.
 
Describe in more detail the EXACT procedure you went through to install the rockers. And that cam with stock heads/springs isn't gonna be much fun.

You don't have to prime/fill the lifters to properly install the rockers, although I suppose it won't hurt.
 
I installed mine correctly (stud mount) and then spun the oil pump with a drill, but the lifters did not pump up all the way - that didn't happen until the engine was running for a minute or two, then the valve train ran wisper quiet.
 
The procedure as given by Mr. Yount.

Be sure the pair you're installing have the lifters on the base circle of the cam - in other words, both valves would be closed if the rockers were on. Hand tighten them to zero lash - with one hand rock the rocker while tightening with the other hand. Once it barely stops rocking (no gap on the pushrod end or the valve stem end) you've reached zero lash. From that point, torque to 18-20 ft-lbs while counting the number of times the bolt turns. It should reach that torque somewhere between 1/4 turn and 1 turn. If it takes more than 1 turn to hit the torque when starting from zero lash, then shim the rocker higher. One .030" shim will reduce the number of turns by about 1/4. If it hits the torque in less than 1/4 turn - you'll likely have a hard time getting it to zero lash by hand, or to zero lash at all - you'll likely need longer pushrods. If it hits the torque just short of a 1/4 turn, you may be able to 'shorten' the rocker by evenly removing some material from the bottom of that rocker's fulcrum. Unless you've replaced the cam with a different one (sometimes replacement's have a slightly smaller base circle) you probably won't run into needing new pushrods.

Once you've installed each pair this way (you'll have to turn the motor over by hand to get each pair of lifters on the cam's base circle - follow the firing order to minimize hand cranking) and cranked the car, if they're noisy, you may have to go back through with everything good and hot (or at least warm) and re-install. The clearances change slightly when things are warm, and I've found that any noisy ones I've had generally quiet down when I do the install procedure warm.

Note that the rockers aren't really adjustable. The install procedure is there to tell you if things are dimensionally the way the should be in the engine. You can just torque them down - but then you won't find out about any potential dimensional issues until you crank it. And then, occasionally, you can find out about them the hard way.

P.S. why wont the cam be fun? I have gt-40 intake and a few other pieces will it not give me power over stock?
 
If these are stock pieces, i had the same problem. We went along and tightened up all of the rocker arms but they were still loose and we thought that the lifters would pump up. Well it didnt work, my machinest told me why. When you take an old head in the valves are recessed in the head from wear, and when this happens your rocker arm takes up the slack, wearing in the middle, and when When you have a valve job done it takes the valve back to stock height. Therefore creating a lose rocker arm. I had to buy new ones. It fixed my problem, i thought that this would help you somehow hopefully thsi makes sense
 
donsbad - the designer of that cam is Crane; it's identical to Crane's PowerMax 2040. Here's what they recommend to go along with the cam:

"GOOD MID-RANGE AND STRONG TOP-END POWER, REQUIRES MODIFIED MASS AIRFLOW, AFTERMARKET INTAKE, PERF. CYLINDER HEADS AND HEADERS, MUST USE 5-SPD AND 3.55 OR NUMERICALLY HIGHER REAR GEARS. REQUIRES CRANE SPRINGS AND RETAINERS. (50 STATE LEGAL 85-93, C.A.R.B. E.O. D-225-46) BASIC RPM 2400-6000"

If the valve springs are stock, many people experience valve float in the 4500-5000 rpm range due to the extra lift of the cam. The stock springs weren't designed to handle that. Also, while you might gain a few HP at peak if you have the valve springs to let you rev high enough to get to it, the bottom end torque production of the engine will likely be much softer - the engine usually feels quite lifeless below 2500 rpm. This makes for a street car that's not much fun to drive. The intake will help; not sure about the cam. Good luck with it.
 
Sounds like you have rocker or pushrod issues. I don't know that you know if the rebuilder set valvve stem height back to stock specs - that would afffect valve train geometry as mentioned. I don't know that there is any more advice that we can give. If you can't get any pre-load on the lifter with no shims in the pedestals, then you need to consider buying a $16 adjustable push rod to check what length pushrod you need.