All Small Six rocker rebuild

[Invectivus]

It's been almost 2 years since I lost the shop space I was renting and made my last push to get the mustang back on the road, so I got it into the garage and started back in. I replaced half my valve seals that were wrong. I need to do two more things now before I button up the valve cover and could use some advice.

The valve cover was cracked up on the passenger side and some lite garbage got in there. I was thinking of stuffing the pushrod holes and the oil feed hole and spraying down the head with a cleaner of some sort, then blow it clean. Then squirt a little oil on the valve stems again. What would be the best way to clean it?

I want to disassemble and clean my valvetrain. Is there a place to get the plugs for the end of the shaft, or does anyone know the part number?

 

[frozenrabbit]

I've just left the rocker shaft end plugs in place, remove everything from the shaft,(keep in order), then heavily flush the inside of the shaft with brake clean through the oil passages.

 

[TrickSix]

The old shaft is probably worn and scored up as well as full of internal dirt deposits. How much can you wiggle the arms on the shaft? O'Reilly Auto has new shafts for $52.99. That doesn't fix rocker arm wear, but it helps. The more space there is between the arms and the shaft, the more oil leaks out before it reaches the front rockers.

 

[Invectivus]

The old shaft is probably worn and scored up as well as full of internal dirt deposits. How much can you wiggle the arms on the shaft? O'Reilly Auto has new shafts for $52.99. That doesn't fix rocker arm wear, but it helps. The more space there is between the arms and the shaft, the more oil leaks out before it reaches the front rockers.

My shaft is super clean and shiny still, the engine was rebuilt shortly before I bought it off someone who decided to V8 swap, but they reused stretched bolts and shaved the head so it wasn’t as tight as it should have been and blew the head gasket. I’m worried if they skimped on something easy like head bolts they skipped on the shaft cleaning.

But then again, there’s such little wiggle on the rockers, it may have been rebuilt with a new shaft already, I just can’t see inside.

 

[frozenrabbit]

It's a lot easier to inspect with the rockers and pedestals removed.