Crane 1.6 rockers gone bad!

[AaronGTR]

Yep, thats right. The Crane gold race roller rockers in my 3400 are going bad. I'm doing some maintenance on the car and decided to pull the front valve cover off to check them, because they seemed to be getting louder with time. Wasn't sure if it was my imagination or not. So I'm looking over them with a work light and I see this...



All kinds of little metal shavings inside the edge of the fulcrum bearing. Wiped it with a paper towel and came away with this.



Lots of little speckles. About half of them on the front seem to have this, and they seem like they might have a little too much side to side play in them. Hard to tell since they are floating rockers with guide plates. Anyway, I sent an oil sample in to blackstone labs for analysis on saturday, and I should find out the results on tuesday or wednesday. I'm sure they're going to find a lot of something though.

So it appears I'm going to be tearing the top of the engine apart and going back to the stock rockers and pushrods for now. I just hope they play well with the cam and valve springs on the engine. I have no idea what could have caused the failure, because it looks like they where getting oil. Maybe they weren't getting enough oil to get it into the drain holes that feed those bearings? Maybe there's a difference in the amount of oil flow with the hydraulic roller lifters in the 3400, compared to the solid lifters in the engine these rockers where actually designed for? Maybe they got too hot, maybe they weren't adjusted properly, maybe god doesn't like me? I got no clue.

[IsaacHayes]

TreeZ24 had some issues with the rockers too. Only his roller tips wore into the rocker. BTW are you running at seats for those springs?

[ForcedFirebird]

All I can say is WOW.

Has anyone tried the SS narrow body rollers? I have a set of AL very similar to the Crane's from Summit, and may have to think of something else.

TreeZ24 had some issues with the rockers too. Only his roller tips wore into the rocker. BTW are you running at seats for those springs?

Ditto. I used the LS1 seats, and you can barely tell they are on there when assembled, what did you use Aaron?

[AaronGTR]

Using the LS1 spring seats also, with LS6 springs and the 3.1L valve seals. My car is a 2000 but it still had the earlier size valve guides so the LS1 shims slipped right over them with no grinding.


I took the rear valve cover off too and some of those rockers look like the fronts too. I'd say about half of them I can see the metal flakes. A couple definitely showed signs of slack between the shaft and the outer race of the bearing. I'm tempted to send them back to crane and see what they say. If they can determine a cause and/or if they'll give me a refund or credit or something.

[SappySE107]

Which ones exactly? Is it intake or exhaust, or mixed? How much preload did you give them? Which cam are you using?

[AaronGTR]

That's a good question. I didn't look to see if it was just intake or exhaust ones. I can see it on both rockers for cylinder #6 though, so it appears to be a mix. I adjusted them per cranes instructions for hydraulic lifters. Rotated the engine by hand to open and close the valves so the lash would be set when the lifter was on the lowest part of the cam. Turned the rocker nut to zero preload, then added 1/2-1 turn and tightened set screw. The only weird thing was some of the lifters, the spring loaded part on the end seemed stiffer on some than others, but I figured they might just have some oil trapped in them and it shouldn't matter if I was setting them all to zero preload plus 1 turn. I'm using a stage1 SC cam from Milzy right now. Lift is .530" int / .526" exh. Custom pushrods about 1/16" shorter than stock (heat treated chromoly), and 3.1L guide plates.

[SappySE107]

Why are you using shorter pushrods? .That doesn't make any sense. Got any other specs on that cam, like LSA and duration at seat to seat and .050. Nothing to do with your rockers, i just wanna know:P

I doubt you needed shorter pushrods with that setup. Also, if you adjusted them for 0 lash, did you make sure the plunger on the lifter wasn't pushed down? They will move a little if you don't watch it, and this will throw your preload off. I don't know if this will wear out a rocker like you are seeing, but it can throw off the tuning with each cylinder being different due to the hydraulic action varying between cylinders.

[powerdoctor]

My one friend marshal over at roush has been running the dynomometer on valve trains and he despises those rockers...

On every stress test they through at them they failed....

They only run comp cams on the high end race engines now...

You guy's ever seen the torington style bearings that go under the valve spring's ????

Its supposedly good for a few horse power and the rocker tip lasts alot longer/ weras better.

I wonder if the 60 v6 has enough machinable "pocket" depth ???

[SappySE107]

Maybe they should check out beehive springs....

Improper valvetrain geometry could be the issue here.

[gpse3400]

I can say that stock rockers will hold very well as long as your pushrods are strong enough and you have the right spring pressure, or you'll bend the pushrod and tear through the rocker.

[powerdoctor]

When the "roller's" in the trunions cycle back and forth they eat into the trunion, the "rollers" are the problem it looks like.

Those rocker's " supposedly " are good for over 320lbs open force....

What's he got .... 280 top's ???

I have wasted crane rockers/ lifters/ and the cam's .... before, many times .

I will never run "crane" anything ever again.

Go use comp cams....
Check out some of the other rockers, then look at the comp's..... Nice !

http://www.jegs.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/category_10001_10002_10231_-1_10229

[jp_grasshopper_007]

Comp rockers won't work. AaronGTR, can you take some pictures of the bottom of your rockers? I'm not sure if it's your picture or not but something looks wrong.

[geldartb]

try Harland Sharp i remember someone saying somthing about using them

[rsisbetter]

try Harland Sharp i remember someone saying somthing about using them

if my cranes fail, that would be the next option, and they are cheaper.

[onefastV6]

I will never run "crane" anything ever again.

I had a bad experience with Crane push rods. I ordered 6 push rods and the tolerances flat out sucked.