evil car rocker ripped out of head

[Anonymous]

ok now im wanting to know if this has happened to anyone else
im driving home tonight im hooning around a bit giving it a thrashing i get to my corner put the clutch in to roll into my driveway and i get this extremly loud ticking noise like a loose rocker only 100x works im like wtf and park and kill the engine

i ripped the rocker cover off and notice cyl4 exhust rocker has been ripped out of the head and the pushrod is flopping around

the bolt that holds the rocker down was stripped so im in need of a new one wreckers tomorrow

anyone had this happen and are there any tricks to repairing this

get new bolt line pushrod up and torque the rocker up ??

im new to internal engine repairs if you cant tell

cheers
pcman

btw if i dont make sence tell me

 

[Asa]

i've had something similar happen to me, 'cept it was the #1 cyl and it was cause of the whole arm that holds the rockers was loose...
if one of them was loose, go ahead and check the rest... some of the best advice i've heard on here was to check, and if necessary re-torque everything that you can, pretty cheap insurance if you ask me
good luck
evan

 

[Anonymous]

yeah im planing on retorquing them all while im at it

i have a manual but not for the alloy head is the torque different for the alloy head

cheers
pcman

 

[Anonymous]

well more bad news for me the bolt hole has been stripped so im gonna have to redrill and tap it to suit a larger bolt

owell atleast i dont have to pull the whole engine apart

cheers
pcman

 

[xctasy]

Don't mean to take the pi** outa ya, but ahhhh, the Dancin' Knitting Needle Engine strikes again.

.

Thats why Discokin6 wants us all to drive overhead cammers.

 

[Anonymous]

heh heh. Cam over head engines dont often have this problem

still, its an awful problem to come across. I'd hate for that to happen to me, I've encountered it on other peoples sixes. Specifically Dylan's. On the retorque, the rocker bolt just went Clunk. Then it spat out alloy filings when I kept on turning it. That made him well happy... :x

 

[Anonymous]

was talking to a mate today and he said to fix use a helicoil kit

so im gonna go out and see what these things are and have a go at fixing it better than getting a new head well not better but cheaper


cheers
pcman

 

[addo]

Well done Disco. My motto in life is "Always practice on someone elses' equipment". Yes, the mind boggles...

I have been chewing over this business of strippage and wondering if the operating temperatures are gradually annealing the alloy.

Adam.

 

[MustangSix]

You have to get a lot hotter to anneal aluminum.

The rocker bolts on a crossflow are only 5/16". Loctite and a proper torquing should do it.

 

[addo]

OK, I stand corrected on the annealing. We've done it plenty to copper pipes, to cheap out when moving a fitting just a few inches.

Does the constant pressure of the bolt thread and the uplift of spring and pushrod affect/alter the grain flow? Seems odd to be occurring now, not earlier in life. Then again, could be cumulative wear past tolerance plus prior overtorquing.

Adam.