All Small Six Help: shaft rocker pressure bleed off hole necessary?

[clochard68]

I wanted to know if the pressure bleed off on the front pedestal of the shaft assembly is necessary?

My problem: I don't get oiling to some of my rockers. I disassembled the shaft and cleaned all oiling holes. Oil pressure when priming is around 45-50 PSI. Was also cranking the engine, but still no oil.

What I want to try: Tap and plug the bleed off hole to have more pressure. I read some time ago that not all assemblies have the bleed off hole...

 

[drag-200stang]

It is the belief that it is necessary to oil the dist. gear, I have blocked it off without any gear problems and ford did delete it on later engines, but that was before junk parts were as plentiful.
Assuming that the cam has the grove in the rear journal, in the right place, rear cam bearing two holes are lined up right in the block and the head gasket is on right ( hard to do wrong) it can take some time to get full flow to the rockers. The turning of the cam as it is running helps to move the oil up to the rockers.
If you did not have a new cam to break in, I would say start it up and check for flow, but you should not let it idle at all, go to 2000 for 20 minutes. Also, rockers have to be set right, I cannot help with that I only run mechanical on my hotrod sixes.
If it was my engine I would heat the engine, hand oil all the rockers put valve cover on run for one minute at 2000 rpm shut off engine and check for oil flow at rockers if good finish break in. The point is to limit idling of engine till cam break in is done.
Disclaimer, I may not know what i am typing about so do at your own risk.
PS, engine look great.

 

[powerband]

"Disclaimer, I may not know what i am typing about so do at your own risk."
the mentioned engine assembly issues are assumed correctly installed, how tight are nice roller rockers on shaft? - since oil flow is not pressurized will seek easiest passage...
.
... it does take considerable time to reach volume in rocker shaft, maybe hand turn over engine assembly while priming? . Plugging front port shouldn't have much effect on rest of oil circuit other than less at startup to lifters?.

I was immediately reminded of the aftermarket noisy solid lifter solution for early ford six's. Tap off tubing on oil switch port fed rocker shaft through VC. Kit came with a point for piercing VC with oil fitting pass-thru and petcock for switch port limiting flow.

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[clochard68]

... it does take considerable time to reach volume in rocker shaft, maybe hand turn over engine assembly while priming? ...

I turned the engine over with the starter motor while priming, still there are 4 rockers that are not oiling (the first one in the front and 3 in the middle of the shaft).

There is a new camshaft installed that I need to break in, so thats why I would like to make shure there is enough oiling.

It is the belief that it is necessary to oil the dist. gear, I have blocked it off without any gear problems and ford did delete it on later engines, but that was before junk parts were as plentiful.

@drag-200stang may I ask why you blocked the hole? Any particular reason?

 

[drag-200stang]

I was running the engine up 7,000 rpm and 120 lbs. on the seat, wanted all the oil to the rockers.

 

[drag-200stang]

Is oil flowing out the bleed hole? if it is then the rocker is full because it is at the top of rocker shaft, but no pressure oiling will build up because of the bleed hole.
Somethings need to be running to work as intended, but then things can be not right and cause problems so there is that.
I definitely would not run more than one minute at 2000 rpm without making sure each rocker is getting oiled maybe try 30 seconds if one minute seems long.

 

[clochard68]

Thanks for the insight.

Yes, oil is flowing out the bleed hole, lots of it actually. Fortunately oiling to the rocker shaft is not the problem. Just some rockers get no oil through the oiling holes.

I will try and block the bleeding hole, crank it while priming. Hope that changes something.
Thanks for all the help!

 

[drag-200stang]

Being that that you have aftermarket rockers, one would hope that it is designed right, shaft oil holes and rocker grooves and rocker oil holes are drilled right, on all. Just keep a close eye on it is all I can say.
I guess it would not hurt to take it apart and see if why some do not oil well. I still think that things should work better when warm and running but you know how that goes sometimes.
Some shafts had a flat spot ground the whole length and that was to be installed down and was to help oiling.

 

[clochard68]

Thanks, I will take it apart and recheck all holes, and compare it to my original shaft.

 

[TrickSix]

In that picture it looks like your rocker shaft stands might be shimmed up with some washers. If that's the case, is the hole in the back one big enough to allow full oil flow past it into the stand? Did you enlarge and blend in the oil flow passages up past the head bolt, through the head, and into the rocker shaft as shown in the Falcon Six handbook? Granted it's a subjective measurement, but since I did all that, it sounds like there's more oil dripping and draining back down into the pan after engine shut-off than before. That implies more oil is being pumped up into the head now.

 

[clochard68]

Yes the last washer I used as shim has an enlarged hole for the oiling.

I disassembled the rockers today and found that the oiling to the pushrods goes through a hole and additionally a groove along the threads. Some rockers have a deeper groove than others, I think that is part of my problem. I will enlarge those grooves before reassembling.

 

[drag-200stang]

Good catch Trick, I missed that.
Clo. just curious is there a grove inside the bronze bushing like stock rockers?
Why are you using the shims? Did you put in taller valves? They should only be used if you know that there is a rocker geometry problem or testing and not to fix a wrong push rod length.
I went back and read where you worked with Paul to fix a roller centering issue, does this shim give the best pattern?

 

[frozenrabbit]

Brand of rockers? I don't trust ANYTHING new, quality control is down the drain in every direction. That groove looks like it's got a burr on the lip. Seems odd they would cut that groove after anodizing.

Does the thru holes line up with the holes in the bushings?

 

[clochard68]

Yes they have the groove in the bushings, and the groove alignes with all oiling holes.

Brand is Rocker Arms Unlimited. Two pedestals were so tight I had to get them off with a hammer and rework the shaft hole...
Shaft looks good as far as i can tell.

I enlarged pushrod-side oil grooves with the dremel, and plugged #1 pedestal. Will try it out on thursday, wish me luck!

 

[drag-200stang]

Make sure that you take a wide fine fine file and carefully file any high spots on the shaft, by filing flat around the round way on a slight angle and then clean up with scotch bright. With a very fine file you should be able to just knock down the high spots if any, without removing any shaft material.
PS, good luck.

 

[drag-200stang]

When you tighten the bolt down, they smash the stand and the shaft some that is why you do not want to over torque them. Steel stands like on the FE s would be nice.

 

[clochard68]

When you tighten the bolt down, they smash the stand and the shaft some that is why you do not want to over torque them. Steel stands like on the FE s would be nice.

Yes they are very soft. I torque them with 30 ft-lbs, 34 ft-lbs like in the tech archive seems a little high to me...

 

[clochard68]

Tested the rocker with the plugged bleed hole and enlarged oiling holes today. Now oil gets through all holes.

Interesting: I torqued the bolts just by hand, but tight. While priming, some oil spilled out in between the first pedestal and the metal plate on top of it.
So I decided to keep it plugged, but I filed a small notch to allow a little bid of bleeding, for pressure relief and oiling to the distributor gear...

 

[frozenrabbit]

I'd remove the plug completely since the oiling issue was the rockers.

 

[clochard68]

I forgot to mention that I had to enlarge the oiling hole hole of the first rocker (#1 cylinder exhaust) even a little more, because this one got the least amount of oil drip.

@frozenrabbit would you leave the plug for more oiling to the distributor gear or for less pressure in the shaft?

The original bleeding hole just seems so big that it pours a lot of oil out