Manky's Pop.

[kapri]

Oblong rocker is just the new type,SD1 onwards . The dished follower shows the cam is not just tired but very tired Although there is preload on the lifter I don't think it's  as much as the depth of the curve worn into the follower. It follows then that the lifter isn't preloaded and with rocker arm on shaft wear it's possible that it simply rode up on the edge of the inner lifter cup. Don't waste your money on new followers without a new cam and don't waste your money on a new cam in that engine.

Yours is a P6 so last made around 40 odd years ago, think t may be a tad worn by now ?

Stick a new pushrod in , with the best set of rockers shafts, stick a St Christopher on your dashboard and start saving for a quick replacement engine of a full overhaul on one of the spares.


Edit :Old different lifter on old already shagged cam ? Not for me thanks.
Edit: p6 lifters aerate at around 5400 as the old P6 only revved to 5200 , SD1, that's Special Developments One , ( which most lifters are to that spec ) revved to 6000. Didn't think you could even get old P6 ones still?

[Manky Monkey]

I think the engine number said it was a '79 SD1 engine, but when I bought it I was told it had different heads on it.
A replacement engine from a good source will be the longterm answer. I'm still hoping to put a few more miles on this one before the Summer's out though. 

[Manky Monkey]

Pulled the suspect lifter & tried to test it by pressing it down onto a round nosed drift clamped in the vice. Couldn't move it, but couldn't move any of the others either, so I've still no idea if it's O.K or not.
So I ended up dropping in a pushrod from my spare engine & bolting down the cleaned up rocker assemblies, lubricating everything with plenty of fresh engine oil. Valley gasket's back on & carb & inlet manifold replaced. All the original lifters are in their original positions.
Ran out of time to hook the various hoses & cables up, so will do them tomorrow. Also got to drill the rocker covers to fit the new breather pipes.
As Mr Kapri said the other day, it's more satisfying to find a definite reason for faults. Can't find any real problem here & might fire it up only to suffer more damage. One way to find out I guess. 

[Manky Monkey]

The spare engine has what I assume is a splash guard above the rockers. Stops the oil being lost through the breather, which is directly above it in the rocker cover?
My breathers are mounted in the side of the covers. Not ideal but I didn't want to ruin the finned top faces.

[Manky Monkey]

Long day at work & short time at the workshop today, so only managed to hook up the various hoses & cables, including shortening & fitting a new throttle cable -the pivot on the pedal had seized up, so the cable fatigued & snapped.
Fitted a new breather pipe connection in one of the rocker covers too. Just got the other to do tomorrow & the coolant to refill, then it's ready to fire up again. It's either gonna run fine, or destroy itself again. Got to be done though.

[spanners]

it,ll be fine,,

[Olds]

Should be ok, just have a little faith.

[Manky Monkey]

Yeah, I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
If it is, I'll never know what bent that bloomin' pushrod!

[spanners]

 I' know what bent that bloomin' pushrod!

furk-up fairy,s 

[poprodder]

lol

[Olds]

If it is, I'll never know what bent that bloomin' pushrod!

Which would you prefer, a running engine or to "know what bent that bloomin' pushrod!"

[Manky Monkey]

Ignorance is bliss!

[Manky Monkey]

Well Mr Old Newbie trundled into the yard on his rather splendid trike this afternoon, just as I was refitting the second rocker cover. Always nice to see you Dave & good to have a second opinion, (I know what goes on inside an engine, but don't claim to be a master mechanic).
I refilled the radiator & we span the engine over a few times with the rotor arm removed from the distributor, just to circulate the oil around the motor. No nasty noises of mechanical mayhem, so we replaced the rotor & gave it a go. A little bit of choke & away it went. Cachugga, cachugga, cachugga.
It always takes a good 10 minutes to warm up properly before it'll tick over nicely, but once it had, it idled quite happily. We listened ...nothing. No clunks, no knocks, no rattles. In fact no sounds of catastrophic carnage at all. No oil, water or fuel leaks. No problems. I switched it off & left it for a few minutes, then tried it again. Still good. Left the radiator cap off to bleed the air out of the system then topped it up. Again, it ran fine. 
That's weird. If we didn't have the mangled pushrod in the workshop you'd never know there'd been a problem.
I didn't get a chance to take it for a spin & may not tomorrow cos I might have somewhere else to be, but as far as we can see, we're up & running again -with no idea what went wrong. Of course, I may go back, turn the key & it self destructs on the first spin, but for now, I'm a happy bunny. 

[poprodder]

great news, think i would of had to take it for a blat around the roads!!!!

[Manky Monkey]

  It was late afternoon before we had it running & it takes a while for the exhaust headers to cool down before I can cover it up for the night, (burnt my arm on them yet again today). I also want to fire it up again from cold one more time, just to be certain.