Why are my rocker arms so loose?

Wild one · Aug 12, 2020

Gabe Paterson said:
I have probably ran the truck for around 45 minutes wether that be idling or driving low speeds around the block. I also soaked the lifters in oil before installing them as I heard that this would somewhat help with purging air from the lifters. I did this soak for around 6 hours before installing.

If everything is in spec as far as lifters/pushrods/rocker arms etc.and working properly,ie: the lifters are pumping up properly,the only thing left would be the cam itself. I've seen that problem on reground cams or a small base circle cam,but the odds of a cam manufacture'r sending you a small base circle cam by mistake aren't really common.What cam did you replace the original with?

jedeisurf · Aug 12, 2020

Just a guess could the deck highth of the new heads be different than stock, causing the need for custom length pushrods?

Gabe Paterson · Aug 12, 2020

I got a new Stock cam from mopar and it looked fine when putting it in. I can’t imagine that would be the issue but I’m also running out of other options. The heads are stock from mopar as well

Tach_tech · Aug 12, 2020

Did you make sure you put the MDS lifters in the right spots?

Gabe Paterson · Aug 12, 2020

Yeah I made sure I had them in right spots before putting cylinder heads on. I’m positive they are correct

Tunaman · Aug 17, 2020

Re-torque everything

demonram · Aug 17, 2020

Gabe Paterson said:
There weren’t any spacers on the rocker arms the heads weren’t resurfaced but I also didn’t rotate the crank and retorque when putting them back on. I will try that today but it seems the play is not between the rocker arm and the mounting points on the cylinder head and instead just really loose where the top of the pushrod is supposed to keep contact with the rocker for that Specific valve. This has happened on 3 of the intake valves on the one side I took off, the last valve on that side is still performing with no issues. The truck was running alright but had a slight tick that would come and go all the time it was never consistently in one spot but would sometimes change from one side of the engine to the other. Other than the slight inconsistent tick the truck ran and had no noticeable decrease in power and no engine codes

Are the intake and exhaust pushrods all the same length, or is one longer than the other? Sounds like you may have put a pushrod in the wrong place.

crackerjack1957 · Aug 17, 2020

Head gasket thickness?

grumpyb · Aug 17, 2020

I have a cummins and when you tighten the rockers there is a specific order to tighten like ,tdc and tighten 1,3,5 and then rotate and 2,4,6 I dont know if gas engines are the same but some of the valves will be open and some closed thats why the rotation while torqueing

James OBrien · Aug 19, 2020

crackerjack1957 said:
Head gasket thickness?

Hmmm... That would account for it. What head-gasket did you use and did it get installed correctly?

Gabe Paterson · Aug 19, 2020

Fel-pro head gaskets

James OBrien · Aug 20, 2020

Darn, worth a shot!

ChevySlayer69 · Aug 20, 2020

there are different length pushrods... maybe the short ones are where the long ones should be?

Tach_tech · Aug 20, 2020

It would have to be a pretty large difference in head gasket compressed thickness in order to cause a valve train issue. Even then it would be on all of them, not just a couple. I have thicker head gaskets on mine that lowered the compression, and there was no issue with any of valve train components.

Gabe Paterson · Aug 20, 2020

today i had a few minutes and i removed the pushrods from under the rocker arm to see if they were possibly worn. they were. the wear on the pushrods was only on the lifter side and matched up with where i was experiencing play up top. not sure what to do next. possibly buy new pushrods and see if it fixes the problem. if it does it may only fix for short period of time. any ideas would be much appreciated

Tach_tech · Aug 20, 2020

I would take the rocker shafts off and look really closely and make sure there’s no hairline cracks or anything.

Gabe Paterson · Aug 20, 2020

Just replaced rocker arms and pushrods on one side found significant improvements ordered parts just waiting to do the other side

46RamMan · Aug 23, 2020

Gabe Paterson said:
Just replaced rocker arms and pushrods on one side found significant improvements ordered parts just waiting to do the other side

Kinda sounds like a lack of oil at the pushrods if they wore down that quickly..IMO I believe that the pushrods get their oil only from the lifter, so it seems to me there is a oil pressure / starvation problem at the lifter.

RAMTRPR · Jun 10, 2021

I had my motor rebuilt and did a new cam and lifters. Didn’t replace the rocker arm assembly or rockers though. They have probably 250k miles on them. I should order and replace all of them for sure correct?

Mbritt · Apr 21, 2023

Did the new rocker arms solve your issue, im having the same issue myself

Why are my rocker arms so loose?

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