removing valvetrain question

quote:

Originally posted by r mccall:
Mike,

Did you read my earlier post? There may be some useful information in there. Also ,changing to a conventional style stud mount rocker would be a horrible idea on a C3 head mostly because the intake ports are raised so much that the port roof is very thin and the threads can pull out. That is where the one piece rocker stands come in because they spread the load over all 8 bolts.
Something to think about.


Ron

The stand also acts as a reinforcement to the heads in that area as well.

The shaft mounted system is a much better system.

With "over 400 pound" springs, concentrating that load in a small area like a stud boss is a bad idea.

OK thatnks for the info.

I'm sticking with "plan A" which is R&R&E. Remove, replace, and enjoy.

Rockers have probably reached T&D by now, soon I'll know whether I'm fixing/rebuilding or replacing the set.

Rocker set made it successfully to T&D, they are going to look at them. If enough of my old hardware is worth saving, they said they might just re-body the set, otherwise I'm just going to order a new set.

They said their steel ones might better suit me, but we're talking big bucks there, if the steel Jesels are any comparison.

I hope to hear back soon, and have my car back on the road soon with a solid valvetrain!

quote:

Originally posted by mike the snake:
Rocker set made it successfully to T&D, they are going to look at them. If enough of my old hardware is worth saving, they said they might just re-body the set, otherwise I'm just going to order a new set.

They said their steel ones might better suit me, but we're talking big bucks there, if the steel Jesels are any comparison.

I hope to hear back soon, and have my car back on the road soon with a solid valvetrain!

Hello Mike; Did/Does T&D consider your current valve spring pressure TOO HIGH for their aluminum rocker arms that are currently installed?!...if so...At what valve spring rate does T&D deem too high for their aluminum rockers?

I'll have to ask them.

I'm not even 100% sure exactly what the spring pressures are.

While the rocker are off, I'm seriously thinking about checking the spring pressures and removing the injection manifolds and center cover and inspect my roller lifters too.

Might as well, now's the time to do it, while the car is already partially apart.

Hello Mike; So...T&D recommends that their steel rockers are better suited for your engine...BASED on WHAT information???!!

Since T&D does NOT know your spring rate as neither do you, what leads them to the conclusion you need to "Upgrade"??!!

The current T&D rockers in your engine have failed NUMEROUS TIMES!!!

A BETTER solution than "Upgrading"...Is to find/diagnose the "Causation"!!!

In "My Opinion"...T&D's FIRST question directed towards you should have been..."What is your fully OPEN valve spring pressure rate"?...

Then..."What is the total valve lift measurement"?

Easiest procedure/course of action for T&D is to recommend..."Upgrade".

Far MORE difficult to find the root of the rocker failures!...Mark

quote:

Originally posted by 1Rocketship:
Hello Mike; So...T&D recommends that their steel rockers are better suited for your engine...BASED on WHAT information???!!

Since T&D does NOT know your spring rate as neither do you, what leads them to the conclusion you need to "Upgrade"??!!

The current T&D rockers in your engine have failed NUMEROUS TIMES!!!

A BETTER solution than "Upgrading"...Is to find/diagnose the "Causation"!!!

In "My Opinion"...T&D's FIRST question directed towards you should have been..."What is your fully OPEN valve spring pressure rate"?...

Then..."What is the total valve lift measurement"?

Easiest procedure/course of action for T&D is to recommend..."Upgrade".

Far MORE difficult to find the root of the rocker failures!...Mark

Those rocker arms are rated around 800 pounds.

MTS springs are likely what is speced on the CompCams card. Why would that vary? The card says 420.
The lift is around .600.

In my view, there is absolutely no acceptable reason from the manufacturer for those BEARINGS in those arms to fail. NONE.

He still needs to hear back from them on it and frankly, they should replace the entire lot free in my view all things considered here. Otherwise their integrity means nothing to me?

Lots of these manufacturers are great on lip service. When their products fail either they man up or whimper off like wussies.

Lots of people here are watching what T&D does on this.

There should be no excuses. Those arms should be able to take this like a duck shedding water. It should be NBFD for those rockers?

I want to see what they do. Personally, I can spend my money with anyone. They are not the only game in town.

If they want the business, then their product has to do what they say it does...otherwise it's just going to be, T&D who?

AHHHHHH!!!!...If one digs deep enough either one discovers the truth or buries themselves.

Soooooo....Since I continually preach "Going to the source"...I phoned T&D directly.

Here is what I was told...Quote..." Aluminum T&D rocker arms are designed for a more Race application, due to the Cycling aspect".

Meaning a race engine is cycled ( turned on & off every few times before a complete engine disassembly VS a street engine that is turned on & off, possibly Thousands of times prior to an engine disassembly)

For this repetitive "cycling" aspect attributed to street engine/s...T&D does NOT recommend their aluminum needle roller rocker arms for a street engine.

T&D does NOT warrant their product & does NOT rebuild for free.

The T&D representative I spoke with ( Sheldon) was familiar with Mike's rocker arms & stated the rockers were from the 1990s.

So 20 years later the rockers showed fatigue & the ensuing problems.

I asked Sheldon if he wanted the link to the issue/s being discussed in regards to T&D rockers, Sheldon explained that T&D does NOT get involved in internet discussions...Mark

H Mike. Since T & D are in my backyard in Carson City NV, I may take some time and go visit them to ask some questions. I probably will get enough new info to write a POCA newsletter article out of it, too! But I'm deep into a newsletter already so it isn't happening this week.

Breaking a rockerarm or two (or fragging a needle bearing) is a general sign that strength somewhere was exceeded, so changing from 2024-aluminum to stronger cast-stainless is a simple fix, lacking other supporting info. Some of those needles may have been from broken Jesels, as Roger also told me that's what they were when the engine was new some 15 years ago.

Yates C3 heads weren't generally available until close to that time, so Jesel may have been the only rockerarm mfgr available. Roger bought them (new) because he couldn't find any SVO stud-mount heads. C-3s usually have small combustion chambers compared to other choices so if you swap heads, changing pistons might also be necessary to get your compression back. Best you sort the problem out like you're doing. When you get done, you'll be an expert!

Hello
My name is Sheldon, I am the Tech at T&D Machine products. I have been here for 15 years now. I was called and asked to respond to this thread. We don’t typically do this because well…….it’s a fair amount of time to do and the end user is the main person we are dealing with and honestly no reason to have it on a public forum. But this one obviously needs to be straightened out so that ALL people now involved know what’s going on.

First I would like to start off by say that our product has the highest cycle time in the industry. We have our rocker arms cycle tested in the worst environment possible. Extreme valve spring PSI, Barley controlled valve train so that the rocker arm DOES bounce around a little bit. Just plain harsh! When our rocker is tested it’s done on a Spin-tron machine.
Our rockers are internally oiled, this means that there are internal oil holes in the rocker arm to oil the fulcrum and spray the backside of the roller tip. The way this works is oil comes up thru the pushrod, into the adjuster screw where it makes a 90* turn and now enters the rocker body itself. An oil hole routs the oil between the two bearings in the rocker and then out to the roller tip. Our rocker now have engine oil pressure right to the bearing itself this is why bearing issues for us is very very rare. Most all other rocker companies have a thru hole in the adjuster screw, this allows oil to spray out the top of the adjuster , hit the valve cover and then rain down on the rocker’s…..to us our design is much better
Spring pressure
Our rocker’s can handle just about any valve spring you want to throw at them. We see well over 1200 psi open pressure in many applications with zero issues with the same material. Now with the high load life will decrease a bit.
Aluminum rocker’s
Every aluminum rocker on the face of the earth will eventually fatigue and die. This is true with anything aluminum that cycles. Look at aluminum rod’s, at some point you need to replace them before they break…same with aluminum rocker’s
Lift
Lift has nothing to do with the rocker what so ever. The rocker can spin 360* on its shaft if it was in your hand. It all comes down to geometry. Geometry is big when it comes to high lift applications and it’s effects on valve train.

Now…knowing how our rocker oil’s. that aluminum will eventually fatigue and die and that lift has nothing to do with the rocker other than geometry you now know it comes down to cycle time. Since aluminum will eventually die off and in some extreme application’s like Blown, heavy NOS, Turbo’s or high cycle time like boats, street car’s ect, we designed a steel rocker option. These rockers are billet chromolly. The reason we suggest these rocker’s for the above applications is that the steel rocker is basicly billet proof. It’s cycle life is almost infinite. In a street application or even a boat we have to look at cycle time. When the engine is even ideling ….it’s cycle time.. cruising down the local strip…cycle time hence why we offer steel rocker’s.
Now id like to touch on the rebuild process.
When we do an inspection we first clean the rocker’s, Do a visual inspection, The rocker is then completely disassembled and inspected. The bearing’s, roller tip, adjuster and jam nut are all looked at under magnification for any issues, the aluminum body we check the bearing bore to see how round it is. Since every single rocker we offer get’s the bearing bore honed we know when it leaves here it’s perfectly round. When we check this bore in the inspection process ANYTHING .0005 out of round or larger we consider bad. This tell’s us something has damaged the rocker either a collision, and over rev or the body is starting to die off.

Now these rocker’s in question are Blue anodized. This tells me they are from mid to late 1990’s because that’s around when we stopped anodizing our rockers. These rocker’s are out being inspected right this minute and I would expect the inspection back on my desk Thursday afternoon. Prior to hecking out this reply I went and looked at them briefly and I’ll be honest it’s pretty ugly so far. I from the first few taken apart I would guess this engine has been blown up at some point or had a massive collision.

Mike I will call you when I have the info in front of me and we will go over it

Thank you for your time and I hope this helps

Sheldon
Any questions feel free to call or e-mail me Tech@tdmach.com

Have to Applaud Sheldon for taking the time & effort to offer his insight/knowledge & expertise.

Very Informative post & explanation, that goes a loooooong ways in my book, your mileage may vary!...Mark

Me too. I'm pretty impressed. Thank you Sheldon.

I hope the prior owner is reading this. There is a lesson to be learned for all of us who may be buying another car (or selling one).

Sheldon, thank you very much for posting. I in no way wanted to bring you or your company's quality into question here.

I believe I was sold an engine that had been run to, or past it's service life, and do not blame the rocker failures on anything but use, and age.

I was told by the previous owner that he had $24000/$27000 (he said both) in parts alone into the engine. He said the heads cost $7000 total, and they had $4000 Jesel rockers in them. This is what I was told when I went for the test drive and was considering buying the car.

I also directly asked how old the engine was (in miles) and was told 5000-6000 miles, and I directly asked if the engine had had any issues, and/or if there was anything I needed to know about this engine. I was told the engine never had any issues, ran great, and should last a long time with proper maintenance.

The car DID run well, lots of power, but I am totally guilty of not having a proper pre-purchase-inspection done, and I took what the seller said at face value.

ALL of this, is on ME. I accept that. I'm over being butt-hurt, I just want to fix the engine so I can drive the car.

As it has turned out, much is very different from what I was told about the engine, and the rockers have, and are, failing, but I believe because they were used up, run hard, and probably run well past their usable life expectancy (and possibly abused-I can only assume).

I appreciate your posting, I eagerly await the report, and as I said, I am more than willing to replace the set with a new set.

I assume the steel rockers are more expensive. Depending on how much more expensive they are, I'll see if I can afford them.

The engine will not see too many miles, so I'm hoping aluminum will be OK. The steel rockers are a LOT more expensive I believe, and I'm just trying to keep this engine running long enough for me to enjoy the car, and save enough to rebuild or replace this engine.
I'd like to spend as little as possible to keep this engine running at this point.

Seeing as the old set of aluminum rockers from you lasted so long, I think the aluminum ones will be fine for me. I won't be pushing the car like the previous owner did, mainly weekend street drives, a track day possibly, maybe an autocross, and I won't be revving the engine too high.

Thanks again for posting here, I didn't mean for you to get involved in an internet discussion, and I never doubted the quality of your rockers.

I am discovering that the engine is just old and run hard, and in need of a rebuild, but it DOES run well, oil pressure is great, compression is good, so I'm hoping the new rockers will have me back on the road.

While the engine is apart I'll be checking everything else out, spring pressures, lifters, etc.
I think the valvetrain geometry is OK, but I'll check that as well if I'm able to.

Thanks again for your input.

Mike Simon

DRUM ROLL PLEASE !!!!!!!

In short this is what we have

6 Intake Bodies bore ranges from .001 to not even registering on the rod hone gage. this stops around .003

1 exhaust body

total of 6 shaft's
17 bearing's
1 roller tip
and 1 side shim

judging from the amount of intake bodies found bad and how far out of round they are I would suspect this engine possibly had blown up at one time. the only grey area is if these rocker's where on this engine the whole time and not purchased used

It is very odd to see so many Intake rocker's hurt. since the exhaust opens against cylinder pressure the exhaust tend to show slightly more abuse then the intake side that has vacuum helping it open. at this point with the age of the rocker's and the amount of damage I would suggest a rebody where we replace the aluminum an d of course and bad hardware and you will be good to go. again I would suggest our steel rocker body but that is up to you


Sheldon

I talked with Sheldon today.

I am going with what is suggested and getting the set a rebody.

Since this engine won't see to many miles before I rebuild or replace it, and knowing a bit about it's history, I'm going with aluminum bodies. The steel bodies, while SO tempting, are twice the cost, and the cost for the rebody I was surprised to find VERY reasonable, great in fact.

SO, he said it'll take about 2 weeks, and then I'll have a solid valvetrain back in my engine.

Thanks to T&D for their fast service and responses.

I look forward to installing them.

Is this what I need to test my springs?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MOROSO...er-NEW-/191542058274

Also, will I need special manifold gaskets if I remove my injection stacks and center cover to inspect my roller lifters?

quote:

CC valve spring 929-16

My first hit from google
COMP Cams 929-16
Dual Valve Springs
•I.D. of Outer Dia.: 1.135"
•I.D. of Inner Dia.: .754"
•Seat load: 148lbs @1.880''
•Open load: 432lbs @1.230''
•Coil bind: 1.160''
•Rate: 437lbs/in

Whoops, I deleted the post because I called Comp Cams and got the info from them.

Thanks very much for posting the info.

The 929-16 was just a part #.

quote:

Is this what I need to test my springs?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MOROSO...er-NEW-/191542058274

If you have any doubt about the integrity of your springs, just replace them and have peace of mind. That spring checker costs over 40% of what it would cost to replace them with a new set of COMP Cams 929-16 Dual Valve Springs (assuming that's what you have/need).
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/1...42031?lpid=82&chn=ps
http://www.summitracing.com/pa...OB6sQCFZRffgodeTYAYQ

Just something to think about...

I was just thinking the same thing. $150 for a new set, I can handle that no prob.

quote:

Originally posted by mike the snake:

Sheldon ... I appreciate your posting ...

Ditto

I can't wait to get my new rockers!

T&D Machine has been AWESOME to deal with. I'm impressed, and happy to have their parts in my engine.