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No oil to rocker arms

19K views 14 replies 8 participants last post by  Vintage 68 
#1 ·
I have a Gen V 502 that was just rebuilt with solid roller cam. After reinstallation of engine I removed valve covers to check for oil to rocker arms. There was very little on drivers side and none on passenger side. The oil pressure was good at start up. I had the car running for at least 10 minutes. I know that the cam bearings were installed correctly. The engine builder (a friend of mine) said that he took the lifters apart and cleaned them. Could the lifters be put back together incorrectly? My friend swears they are put together correctly. He has done it before. The cam, lifters and rockers are all Crane. Or is there something else I should be looking at? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am so bummed out. I can't go another summer without my car!!!
 
#2 ·
Did you properly pre-lube the engine?
Is it a roller or Ft cam?
Is it a stock dist. or aftermarket?
Did you try getting a pressure reading at the front tap to compare?

Barring someone getting fancy and using restrictors in the system, this shouldn't be a porblem with the stock system ...
 
#4 ·
Hans,
I have never taken apart a solid roller lifter. Plenty of hydraulics, but never a solid. I dont know that there is really anything in them to go wrong ? I have a GenV block at the shop, I will try to take a look at it in the AM and see if I can figure out what might be wrong. I wonder if he left an oil galley plug out by mistake ? You can leave one out and still have pretty decent oil pressure, but not get any up top :(
 
#5 ·
I would revert back to sqaure one.You have the rocker covers off now..pull the distributor.Install a priming tool and run it with a 1/2" drill.Have a friend manually rotate the engine at the crank pulley in 90 degree increments while you prime and observe.
Your lifter to bore clearance may be wide and it is not uncommon for a big block chev to take its time burping air out the galleys.
This will cost you nothing but time..and no engine damage will occur vs running it with no top end oiling.
If you can honestly say that after at 10 minutes of priming and rotating the crank by hand that you still have no oiling to 16 rocker arms..further checks will be reqd.
 
#6 ·
I had this problem with a 67 396 that I built way back when. MY problem turned out to be that the earlier BBC uses a cam with a machined grove around the rear of the cam that is needed to promote oil flow to the top end. I had put in a cam that didnt have the grove. Dont know if this is any help but just FYI.

Deffinately use a drill / old distributor attachment to run the oil pump as describe above.
 
#7 ·
Hans,
The only thing I can see at a quick glance, is he may have forgotten the three very small oil galley plugs that are in the lifter valley area. You should be able to see them looking down through the oil drain back areas on the heads. They almost look like bolt holes for the hydraulic lifter hold down plate, but they are actually 1/8" pipe plugs. I dont have my camera with me today, but I will try to take a pic with my phone and post it later. I will look at this block a little more after I wake up :)
 
#9 ·
Thanks everyone for your responses. I really appreciate it!

George, We have done the priming with a drill and the priming tool and still no oil.

Jeff, The lifters only had about 200 miles on them. I don't know why he took them apart but he has done this before without any issues.

Bill I will definitely check the galley plugs tonight when I get home from work.

I just had a call from my friend. He was thinking that the distributor may not be lining up to the oiling holes because the block was decked and heads were milled and the intake was machined to fit the new locations of the heads. So the distributor is sitting about an 1/8" lower in the engine....Could this be it?
 
#11 ·
I've worked with a lot of decked blocks and never run into this problem ...
With the width of the galley sealing areas on the distributor it is hard to imagine that this small a movement could possibly uncover one of them :confused:
I guess you could check it easy enough by stacking a couple of the sealing gaskets under the mount flange and retrying.

Several aftermarket companies make an adjustable mount collar type distributor for adjusting the installed hieght.

If you do a quick pressure test of the front tap and compare the 'delta' to the rear tap, it should show you fairly quickly if the problem is with oil distribution to the cam galley ;)
 
#14 ·
Ok,

I found a good pic online. If you look at this picture, there are three very small pipe plugs in the tops of thee three bosses that the yellow arrows are pointing to. You should be able to see them down through the passenger side head. If they are missing, they will bleed off pressure from the oil galleys.
 

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#15 ·
He beat me to it ...
(I got the front plugs posted and then saw Bill's post.)
 
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