With the heads off for valve service,
I was checking the rocker arms and shafts and found bearing failures in two of the rocker arms.
The failures are on the intake left side and the exhaust right side, same rocker number.
Pieces of the bearing race that retain the needles, closest to the bottom pillow block, had broken off.
At some point they had gotten jammed between the remaining race flange and the pillow block causing gouges on the pillow block.
It looks like a piece had gotten jammed in the gap in the pillow block at some point.
This could have been catastrophic, I’m figuring.
Has anyone seen failures like this, and are there any tricks to changing these bearings?
On one rocker about a third of the race flange broke off, and about two thirds on the other one.
I guess the bearings will have to be pressed out by the top bearing as the flanges are broken.
The shafts will have to be replaced as they both show brinnelling where the broken bearings ran.
I have always checked the rocker end play whenever I checked the valve clearances and they seemed fine.
@8166
The marks on the shaft are just visual, can't really feel anything, but they don't appear on the shafts with the good bearings. The pieces of the races all appear to have stayed between the rocker and the pillow blocks. I'm thinking of shipping the rockers out to have the bearings replaced. Would it make sense to replace all the rocker bearings at this point? Is there a preferred bearing brand? Any thoughts on the cause? Lack of lubrication down at the bottom of the rocker?
Thanks
You took the heads off to service the valves? what sort of service were the valves getting?
You must pull the pan to look for fragments and loose needles. They might show up on your magnetic drain plug too. No magnetic drain plug? go stand in corner. Buy new pan gasket. When reinstalling pan oil filter cover must be off. Make sure bolt does not go through and mash canister. You may have one shorter bolt for that location, you may not.
Just buy the bearings from a dealer. Do not buy them from save-a-lot airhead parts inc. the bearings should have a number on them that specifies the bearing. Anything by FAG, NTN, etc. is fine. Anything by Taiwan is not.
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