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Exactly which ones are galled? Which one are blue and where? Do you have pic of the galling? You put it back together with the rocker/shaft galled? How much side clearance?



No, no pictures of the galling...but the marks on the rocker arm shaft would barely catch a finger nail...in fact, they appear more like scuff marks. The rocker arms themselves still show the factory (I believe) cross-hatch hone pattern, but the metal is coloured slightly bluish in the areas where the shaft is scuffed. I thought that indicated the rocker arms were beginning to gall in those spots.

Not all rocker arms show this...and those that do have visible scuff marks on the shaft, but these again are not necessairly deep enough to catch a finger nail.

So...am I just being overly cautious maybe?

The shafts I'm using were new Hughes pieces (part #1600), here is a pic (Hughes web site) showing the shaft oiling hole along with the bananna grove:



All of the retaining bolt holes are the same size, there are no oversized holes, so whatever oil is making it through to the shaft to oil the rocker arms is squeezing through the same openning as what the bolt is using. I'm going to compare this to a stock shaft to see if there is an actual difference in size and will measure the Hughes pieces as well.

The reason why I put it back on is basically this: not sure that I can do anything about the wear, and we have a house moving coming up soon so I really need to have this car up and running (time is tight). I have also heard in the past that these SS rocker arms were prone to galling, especially if mounted on a hard shaft like the one I'm using. I was sort of expecting to see some of this, but only after having put some serious miles/RPMs on the engine. So at this point in time my thinking is as follows: I will re-check the oil flow, if that's good then I will run these and check them out again after some time. If they get worse I will probably pull them and send them off to get bushed (any suggestions where?), either way I will have to get new shafts.

BTW: Side clearance is about 0.010-0.015 per rocker arm pair...currently they are perfectly centered over the valve stem and I have great sweep pattern on the stem. I have heard of rocker being ran as tight as 0.005"...so I left mine a bit looser.