I just put my 400 back together with new hydraulic roller lifters. Now that everything is reassembled I am second guessing myself. I am using regular adjustable shaft mount roller rockers. The shaft gets it’s oil supply from a hole in the shaft that is fed from the second mounting stud from each end.

My question: Is there a top and a bottom to the shaft? Is there an oil supply hole in both sides of the shaft or just one side? Is it possible to install the shaft with the wrong side up and have the oil supply hole face up with the other side of the shaft effectively blocking the oil supply from the head?

The rocker holdown bolt holes in the shaft are the same on both sides so they could be installed upside down and the shaft itself will still recieve oil but you want the small oiling holes where the oil comes out at each rocker on the bottom side of the shaft to be slightly offset toward the valve side. If the notch on the front of the drivers side shaft is down and the notch on the rear of the passenger side shaft is down you are good

Not all shafts are the same. None the less, there are four different orientations for installing a shaft, and generally, only one orientation is correct.

I will go and pull the valve covers and see where the notches are on each side. I wish I had been paying more attention when I put it togather.

Notches are small block thing. Just put the 1/8 inch oiling holes down and away from pushrod side of shaft as mentioned.

Is there any way I can tell by looking at the shaft as opposed to removing it? That’s why I was wondering if the oil feed holes exist on both sides of the shaft. If they do then it wouldn’t matter which side was down.

No you cannot tell. No, there are usually only holes on the bottom (depending on who's shaft you're using), and even if they are down, they still may not be in the correct orientation.

They need to come off.

Can you tell me what you mean by even if the holes are down they might not be in the correct orientation? Are you referring to the shaft possibly being flipped end for end?

I guess I have no choice but to take it apart again. Story of my life! Can you tell me what to look for when I get it apart?

To quote RapidRobert's answer. "If the notch on the front of the drivers side shaft is down and the notch on the rear of the passenger side shaft is down you are good"

roller rockers are sealed all the way around the shaft unlike stamped so it really matters not which way the holes are. But down is right down and angled back I believe on stock shafts and stamped rockers.

OK, I have one valve cover off. There are no notches or markings on the ends of the shaft at all. I believe Buildanother said that only applied to small blocks. I guess I will pull the shaft next. Besides the oil hole facing down what else should I look for to verify the correct orientation of the shaft? I had it running for a while at an idle. There is plenty of oil puddled in the head so it must be oiling somewhat.

Thanks. So if I understand correctly as long as my oil holes are facing down and it is getting oil supply then everything is OK? I also assume that if everything seems to be oiling well then the holes must be facing down.

ChrisDavis, RR answered your question earlier about orientation.

Dodgem - I'm not sure what you mean by "sealed" but you can probably get away with it on a conventional adgustable rocker with moderate valve spring pressure. If you flip the orientation of the oiling holes and run it for a while, you'll see the misalignment of the oil hole relative to the wear area on the shaft.

Correct. I'm assuming that he does not have fulcrum rollers. Could be mistaken

i would pull the shaft ( it takes less than 5 min.) slide one rocker off, if the small oil hole is on the bottom and oriented towards the exhaust side not the intake side you are good. if not, spin the shaft front to back and re place the rocker gear correctly. not that big of a job. then check the other head. should be half hour to an hour and its fun, you get to play with a big block mopar!

I had no idea BB's didn't have the notches also. I'd as he said pull each shaft/rocker assy, take off 1 rocker and if the holes are not on the bottom/15 deg toward the valve side I'd slide the shaft out and put it back in the other way/reassemble

You know how some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed? The new Scorpion lifters went in without a hitch. They are quiet too. I did have the shaft in its correct orientation for oiling. However….. I now have a stripped rocker shaft bolt hole. One of the ones that feeds oil. The aluminum is stripped out along with about 70% of the helicoil. I have 4 good threads left at the bottom and have studs, as opposed to bolts, on order. I am thinking maybe JB Weld instead of Locktite.

Studs are highly recommended on the rocker shaft hold downs, especially in aluminum. That is one of the topics I illustrated multiple times in my big block book because it is a classic problem.

I know adhesive is not the proper way to fix the stripped rocker shaft bolt. But what do I have to loose!

I have at least 4 good unused threads at the bottom of the hole. I am going to clean the hole very well with brake cleaner, allowing sufficient dry time, and then I am going to fill the bottom of the hole with JB Weld. I will strip the black anodizing off the stud’s threads and thread it all the way to the bottom into wet adhesive. I anticipate gluing the bottom one inch of the stud in. With the good threads I have I shouldn’t have to count on the adhesive for too much holding strength since all I really need is to keep from pulling out the remaining threads.

Has anyone ever tried something like this? If you have, what adhesive did you use? I see three main choices. First is JB Weld. Another possibility is Permatex’s Stripped Thread Repair Kit. The only other one I could find was Loctite’s Form-A-Thread. I am leaning toward the JB Weld since it is good to 600* and the others are only good to 300*. Besides that I have no experience with the other products but I have used JB Weld.

Does anyone else have an opinion on adhesives? Has anyone tried any of the products I mentioned above? Is there another product I haven’t considered?


NOTE: Edelbrock now ships their BB Mopar heads with studs included for the four oiling holes. They didn’t used to do this. In fact this appears to be so new that they don’t have the stud part numbers set up for ordering in their systems yet. For reference the Edelbrock part numbers for the stud, nut and washer are 36-6091, 36-6092 and 36-6093.

JB Weld ain't gonna do sh*t! In fact, you'll run the risk of it blocking the oil passage or chipping and causing you grief later. Either pull the head and fix it right of leave the thing as it is.

Now that I think of it there is a solution you might try with the head on the block.

First block the oil passage (use an appropriately sized piece of o-ring ???)
Put rags around everywhere else to catch debris.
Buy an item call a "Keensert". Drill and tap the stripped hole and install the keensert.

Unlike helicoils, keenserts require no "special" tools.

Once you've cleaned up the drilling and tapping debris, use the engines oil pressure to blow the o-ring piece up out of the passage.

Well… I am going to find out this weekend. I will be reassembling everything Saturday and will see if this worked.

I had trouble locating correct studs. ARP’s regular stud line is only threaded for ¾”. The hole in the head is 1” deep. I ended up using Edelbrock (ARP) 6009 Ford FE studs. They are threaded for 1” on both ends. They are about 3.6” long, which is about 1/3” longer than what Edelbrock recommends for their Mopar heads. They fit perfectly, with 3 or 4 exposed threads above the nut and have tons of valve cover clearance.

I JB Welded the stud in Monday. One mistake I made was putting adhesive in the hole first. It caused a hydro lock situation that prevented me from tightening the stud down all the way to the bottom of the hole. That means I might have caught 2 or 3 of the good remaining threads rather than all 4 or 5 of them. I didn’t discover I wasn’t at the bottom of the hole until I set the shaft in place and noticed the stud was higher than the other side.

To get the JB Weld thinned enough to be workable I had to mix a few drops of acetone with it. That extended the curing time by at least a couple of days. I have samples drying on a cardboard to verify it’s cure. Good thing I called JB Weld first. They informed me that brake cleaner leaves a residue behind that prevents JB Weld from bonding. I cleaned the holes again with acetone.

Thanks to Stanton for the idea to plug the oiling hole. The O-ring didn’t work because I wanted to leave a tail hanging out for removal and couldn’t get the stud past it. However an equivalent sized piece of wire insulation did work. It plugged the oil hole and then flattened out so I could get the stud by it. As soon as the adhesive dried enough to not run I pulled the wire insulation out flattening it between the head and the stud as it came. No adhesive got anywhere near the oil hole. I also masked the shaft journal to keep it clean.

Last, just to add insult to injury, I put new double valve springs on. They are 160 on seat and 360 at my cam’s .550 lift. This thing is either going to go or blow.

You always have the option of drilling horizontally in the rear of the head then angle down from the rear pedestal to meet this passage. I've done it on a SB and have not yet but will be doing it on a BB and it has the benefit of allowing you to restrict the 5 crank to cam passages to 1/16" which is plenty of oil for the cam bearings/journals.

So far so good. I have heat cycled it a few times now. I also ran it up to 6K in all three gears. When I pulled the valve cover the nut on the glued stud still had the 30 Lbs torque I tightened it to. It is going to be interesting to see how long this holds up. Maybe someone else will benefit from this experience.

Does Banana grooving the holes help any with the oiling on roller rockers? During a previous build, a friend did this for me and he had grinded in banana grooves on my rocker shafts.