6.2 Valve Rocker Retainers

[motormayhem]

Well I broke a valve spring and was a pretty close to dropping a valve from the looks of it. Luckily I shut it down before things went too off the rails. Long story short, when I pulled the rockers to repair the spring I also had a cracked rocker shaft and the old style bushing/cast rockers showed major lubrication/wear issues on the shaft.

From some research it sounds like the stamped rockers work fine and don't have the lubrication issues the older design does, but those plastic rocker retainers are sketchy at best. With that I set about improving the rocker retainers. I made inserts for the shaft that a allows a bolt to thread into the shaft as well as heat treated steel retainers to guide the rocker. I'm quite happy with the setup and have about 5k on them without issue. Fun hot rod project for the truck.

 

[SteelNinja]

great info , what ( year) is considered older design?
Im looking to find a cheap rebuildable motor , Ive thought about , doing a port and polish on the heads , polish the rods, cross drill the crank - But Im new to the 6.2 .. I'd like to replace any weak parts

 

[motormayhem]

great info , what ( year) is considered older design?
Im looking to find a cheap rebuildable motor , Ive thought about , doing a port and polish on the heads , polish the rods, cross drill the crank - But Im new to the 6.2 .. I'd like to replace any weak parts

I believe the cast iron rockers were like 83-84. Maybe 85 too? Mine was an '84. This was what mine looked like coming out of the engine. Had about 70k miles on the engine and all 4 shafts had ~0.030in of wear where the bushing was running. All scored up beyond repair. I can't say I'm too surprised. It took about a minute or more for oil to start coming out the push rods idling with 15W-40 on a 70F day so they run without much lubrication for a while after startup.

 

[SteelNinja]

I may put a 454 in mine and just get'er done LOL

 

[chevymike]

I may put a 454 in mine and just get'er done LOL

That's what I have sitting in my garage to swap into mine.

 

[SteelNinja]

Bro You should sell your work in a kit!
also Happy 4Th

 

[SteelNinja]

Motormayhem , when I get my spare motor on the stand my I pick your brain when I get ready ?