Crane 1.6 rockers gone bad!

[AaronGTR]

I'd say if his pushrods is 1/16" to short then the rocker is sitting 1/16" lower to get the same preload as you have and he would have ran a chance of wearing out his valve guides due to the rocker not in the center of the valve stem.

Everything I found said that if the roller tip stayed within the center third of the valve stem tip that it was safe and would not make excessive side loads. It was, so I used them. Besides, it's the fulcrum bearings and not the valve guides I'm having trouble with. I'm more inclined to think it's an oiling problem like Monzsta said.

[923.4v6]

it may be a oiling problem, I just thought I would let you know about the valve guides if you hadn't checked them. I had a 406 sbc zero decked and they took .010 extra off and I didn't think to check mine and wore out almost every guide in my TFS heads, my pushrods was to long though.

[powerdoctor]

Well using valve lash caps will help valve tip wear and can correct for reground cams if you have the right length pushrods and you compensate for them.
I have used them and I have not had an issue yet...

http://www.jegs.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/category_10001_10002_11299_-1_11071

The correct geometry for any rocker is about the same...

If you are at half lift, the rocker should be perpendicular to the pushrod and the valve....

Or the pushrod should be at 90 degree's to your valve and 90 degrees to your pushrod....

I can't upload a bit map big enough to show you guy's....

[powerdoctor]

You cannot run just any rocker. Has to be narrow body, as was explained (just verifying).

Some of wider ones hit huh?

What is the max width at the tip ( roller ) ????

[SappySE107]

Tip doesn't matter, its the fulcrum area that hits.

[WrathOfSocrus]

Yeah I looked that over and I was incorrect about it being close at the tip end. It gets close between the valves from one cylinder to the next.

EDIT :

I can't upload a bit map big enough to show you guy's....

You can open a bitmap in MS paint and then click on Save As and change the save type to .jpg or .gif (among other extention options) and GREATLY reduce file size.

[IsaacHayes]

http://www.irfanview.com/ is nice for that too. Crop/resize, jpg quality %. Small program.

[treeZ24]

As for me, I was only the second person to try these crane rockers and look how that turned out. I now have $430 worth of scrap aluminum! I've seen the stock rockers get split so I'd like something stronger, something with a more precise ratio, and something with a roller tip... but I don't have the time or money to play the guinea pig anymore. I'm not buying any other rockers until someone can prove they work and they last. Until then I'm just going to get some stronger pushrods (and make sure they are stock length this time) to make sure they don't have any flex with the cam and springs I'm using, and hope the stock rockers don't die on me.

sorry to hear about this. ALL the roller tips wore into the aluminum housings on the same side, some worse then others (intake and exhaust both) on my brand new engine. Oil changes were about 4000km's after the break in change. Its always had really good oil pressure (80psi cold, 60psi warm running) as well. Periodically I have pulled off the front valve cover to check all the oiling was good on the top end, guess what, there was plenty of oil everywhere. A year ago, I changed over to the comp cams magnum roller tip rocker since I have the gen 2 bottom end and the engine overall just runs better. Best of all, no aluminum in the oil changes. Imagine my surprise to see what I thought was brass bearing material in a brand new rebuilt engine.

i told sharkey's dad about what happened and he said no wonder, he wont touch them with a 10 ft pole.

[AaronGTR]

Yeah, I'm not going anywhere near any aluminum rockers again. There's also the fact that they are so large and require the extra clearancing. If I had some chromoly rockers they are smaller and I bet I wouldn't have to clearance them or the LIM to fit. I might try that route in the future if I can find some chromoly rockers with roller tips that are the correct size, so I'm going to keep my guide plates and conversion studs. For now though I just need to get the car running again and soon.

[ForcedFirebird]

has anybody checked these?...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/SBC-CHEVY-STAINLESS-ROLLER-ROCKERS-1-6-3-8-23023_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ33624QQihZ015QQitemZ250235245171QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

My neighbor has a set for his 327 Fiero, I'mm sure he wouldn't mind loning me a couple to check. I have heard good things about them, and even used some 4340 stamped style from them with no complaints (but I was coil binding, so they weren't run long).

[Alxsmt]

hmm im kinda thinking i dont want my rockers on my new engine...

[jp_grasshopper_007]

Whatever ......

It looks "wrong" because they are ADJUSTABLE !!!!

They have guide plates and poly locks "weed hopper" ....

And if he use's the new " big block chevy conversion studs " they are 10mm to bolt into his head and 3/8 on top for his rockers, which means he can run any damn rocker he want's .....

Or he can have the heads re-tapped for 3/8 screw in studs...

Either way, you are wrong .....

powervagina,

Are you that dumb? It looks "wrong" because the rocker is so low. By the posted picture it looks as if the rocker is rubbing the base of the stud and / or the top of the guide plate, not that it has guide plates and poly locks. Maybe you should have a little bit of an idea of what you are talking about before you give your 2 worthless shits!

[AaronGTR]

update

Ok, I got everything else apart tonight and did some more investigating.

First off let me say no, nothing was rubbing or hitting anywhere. I checked all that exhaustively the first time I installed them, and nothing had changed. What I really didn't think about was the oiling. I just automatically assumed they would work properly since they were designed for an earlier 60v6 and I didn't know enough to check that stuff back when I did it. Live and learn.

On to the interesting stuff. Here is the rocker with the valve fully open.



Here it is fully closed.



It does look a little low, and probably because of the pushrods. I don't think even the stock length would be right since it's only 1/16" difference. I'd probably need longer. The oil holes in the pushrods definitely line up with the holes in the rocker at some point during the stroke. I guess the question is do they line up at the proper time when the oil is coming up? My guess is that the holes might have been starting to go out of line when the oil was going through which might have restricted the flow.

Here's a shot of the push rod cup in the rocker.



Kinda hard to see in the pic, but there are two different radius dishes there. A large outer one that doesn't contact the rod, and a smaller inner on that the ball end of the rod sits in. Also the oil hole in the middle is counter sunk with a larger hole drilled in the dish, probably to make sure the oil can get in, but I guess maybe my geometry was off too much for that to help.

You can't see it really well in this pic either (my digi-cam sucks for close ups), but there is a silver pin at the top of the rocker that the oil feed through from the push rod cup on the other side. It has a very small hole drilled in it at 90 degrees to spray the oil down into the rocker. On all the rockers, that hole was off center aiming towards the left side of the rocker. None of them were restricted though, so I don't know if that matters.



You can see the metal particles on the bottom of the rocker nut here. Some where worse than others, but I definitely saw them on every rocker. They're junk now.



I decided to compare my custom push rods against the stock ones as well to see what else I could find. The radius of the ends were all the same. Then I looked at the oil holes and they looked a bit smaller. Got out some tiny drill bits to check them with, and the custom rods had holes that were 5/64" diameter. The stock ones were between 3/32" and 7/64", so they had bigger holes in them and I'm thinking the custom rods might have been restricting the oil slightly too?

I don't know if they had to use 5/64" holes in them because of the thicker walls? I got .083" wall thickness rods because they were the only ones they recommended for guide plates. Those are good for up to 700lbs open spring pressure though so they are a bit over kill. The new ones I ordered are .049 wall thickness heat treated 4130 and good to 500lbs open spring pressure. The springs I'm using are only 290lbs open so I should be good there and hopefully these will have larger oil holes in them. I sent them two of my stock ones this time to make sure they get it right.

A few other questions... I pushed on the spring cups on all the lifter to make sure they were still working, and four of them were hard as a rock. Is that normal? I took one out and took the retaining clip out, removed the plates inside, and pushed in on the little hole in the center. iirc there is another plate or something inside that holds the oil behind there? Anyway some oil came out, I put it back together, and it's springy again now. Should I assume that it was just the hydraulic pressure in them holding them firm, since that's what they normally do when the engines running right?

And one last thing... the oil pump drive gear. Does this look like normal wear? It's the original gear and has 56,000 miles on it.



It's got a brassy sort of finish on it (I guess this is what they call "melonized") and interestingly it already has the brown high temp o-ring. There's a sort of swishing wear mark across the face of the teeth though. I've had this out before, but I didn't look at it really close and I don't recall if it had any wear marks or not. Do you guys think I should get the bronze gear? And how hard is it to change? Do you just have to knock out the little roll pin in it?

[IsaacHayes]

From what 3400-modified showed the bronze gear wears super super fast.

[jp_grasshopper_007]

"A few other questions... I pushed on the spring cups on all the lifter to make sure they were still working, and four of them were hard as a rock. Is that normal? I took one out and took the retaining clip out, removed the plates inside, and pushed in on the little hole in the center. iirc there is another plate or something inside that holds the oil behind there? Anyway some oil came out, I put it back together, and it's springy again now. Should I assume that it was just the hydraulic pressure in them holding them firm, since that's what they normally do when the engines running right?"

yes, thats normal. you should pull all your lifters and bleed them. if you have a bench vise take a short bolt (round the threaded end) put it in the pushrod end of the lifter, put in the vise and squeeze. don't try to get all the oil out at once just tighten and loosen the vise until you can colapse the lifter and no oil bleeds out the hole. this will make it easier to set your lash and preload when you reassemble eveything.