I was priming my fresh 318 last night and I shimmed the rocker shafts on the passenger side .030 and the the drivers side .015. The .015 were good but I'm leaking oil out under the rockershafts on the .030 side. I was still getting oil out of the rocker tips and it was hard to tell if oil was coming out around the rockers because of the large ammount coming out around the shaft mounts. Anybody else have this problem? It was late so I quit right there but plan to take them off today and see if maybe theres burrs or I can try and "smooth" them out some.

Another thing is it common that you have to rotate the engine to a certain spot to get oil to the rocker shafts? When I'm gettin oil out of one theres nothing on the other and vise versa. If I remember right there would be one spot on one revolution of the crank I'd get oil to one side then on another rev of the crank oil would come out of the other side. I had the shaft bolt over the oil passage through the head out on the drivers side and was cranking the motor around with a socket and 1/2" ratchet and the other hand running the drill on the priming shaft and when I hit the right spot it shot oil about 5 to 6 feet in the air. Its been years since I primed a fresh engine and I cant remember if it did this or if I evan tried to make sure I was getting oil to every spot.

Most every engine will leak there with shims or not. I have primed Indy head units that leaked like crazy at the stands--run it and forget it--you will be fine--just don't think about how much it sprays when hot--or you will not be able to sleep at night.

yes its normal for you to get oil on one side till you rotate the cam , the oil path only does one bank at a time

i think the cam has a hole in it so it only lines up with the oil holes once each turn to each head.

i agree, got to turn it.

when clamped , if it leaks dribbles at the hold downs, clean and fine sand the contact areas. then retighten it should help seal..

and yeah...if you set it right, screwing around, 65# of pressure will send the oil sqirtin out.

I used to run shaft shims but havent since since I sold that engine but it is hard to get the shafts sealed against the shim or th pedestal.
My best sealing was achived using aluminum shims that wer filed to fit, I used an old shaft and hammer to seat the shim against pedestal and sandpaper with same old shaft to correct th radius for the shaft seat, did not have any fun doing this but it worked, Brass or steel shims are much harder to seal, the thicker the shim the harder they are to seal

Oil leakage with shims is another hazard of using rocker shaft shims.

Well I stuck a gauge on it and was getting 74 psi with the drill while priming it evan with the severe leak on the shaft stands.(Running a Melling HV pump) I took them out and there was no burrs but you can see they are not a perfect "curve". I stuck them on a set of 906 heads for a BB and cranked the livin' snot out of them hoping to smooth them up. Didnt help. I tried the shaft without the shims and got zero leaks just like the other side with the .015's in it. I took some laquer thinner on a rag and cleaned the shaft, mount stands, and shims and then took some black rtv in my fingers and smeared a light coat on the shims and stuck them down on the heads, let them set a minute or two then installed the shafts. Cranked them down and waited 20 minutes and primed it again. No major leaks. A couple ever so small weaps and thats it.

It leaked so bad you'd have thought it would have had zero oil pressure. Not 74 psi like I was getting. I seriously think evan with the leak it would have got enough oil to the rockers but man it looked like it would have pumped the pan dry doing it. I have to run them to get my geometry right or I surely wouldn't. Like what was said above the steel is too hard. Need a softer shim that will flatten out better. Probably wouldnt be as big a deal on a BB seeing how they got the next size up bolt and will take more torque on the shaft bolts. 20 ft lbs aint going to squeeze much down on that small block shaft.