Mostly good news on this topic. I talked to Blair Patrick earlier today about the problems I was having, and he suggested that I should be looking at the valve to stem clearance on the exhaust valves. He thought that there was at least a small chance that the valves were seizing in the guides, and that was contributing to the excessive wear or possibly even the seizing of the rockers on the shafts. Tonight I pulled one of the heads apart, and found that the valves all had plenty of clearance. I don't have the tool to measure it exactly, but I spoke with my machinist at R&R Performance, and he said they set all the exhausts to 1.8 thousandths clearance, and all the intakes to 1.6 thousandths. He also said that in 15 years they've never had a valve seize in a guide. Based on this and the way the valves felt in the guides, I think I can rule out this possibility.

Then Larry from T&D called me tonight, and we had a very interesting conversation. First, Larry made it clear from the outset that he would stand behind his products. I had suspected that he would do that, because I've always heard good things about T&D, and have had good experience with their wedge rocker setups. But it was nice to hear it directly from Larry anyway.

Next we started discussing the adjusters, and Larry told me that the engineers at T&D had finally succeeded in duplicating the failures I was seeing! I was really relieved to hear that, as I was beginning to feel like the boy who cried wolf. Larry said that their initial testing showed that the adjusters were good up to a torque of around 45 ft-lbs. They had no failures below that torque level, after several different types of testing. Then, however, they tried a test where they put a load on the elephant foot adjuster, to duplicate the load from the valve spring. After applying that load, they removed it and torqued the lock nut to 30 foot pounds, and began to see the same kind of failures with the adjuster breaking that I had experienced.

So, T&D will be making up new sets of adjusters for these rocker arms, using a different material that is more ductile, and replacing the adjusters in all the sets of rockers.

Next we talked about the fit of the rockers on the shafts, and Larry pointed out that all of T&D's rockers are based around needle bearing fulcrums, and that they hadn't done a sleeve type bushing in a rocker setup for 25 years. He said they had aimed for a clearance of around .001", but based on my results thought it might be too tight. After some discussion I suggested that he measure the ID of some of the factory SOHC rockers that he had available at his place, and just try to duplicate those clearances. I think he's going to go ahead with that, and I'm guessing he'll end up at .0015" to .002" of clearance, which should be fine based on my experiences with the Dove and RAS rockers. Larry said he can hone the existing rocker bores up to the larger clearances, so remaking the rockers won't be necessary.

Finally we discussed the grooves that were cut into the rocker shafts by the spring clips. Larry thought that this was probably a shaft hardness issue; he hadn't hardened the shafts as much as he normally would with a needle bearing fulcrum assembly. The reason was that at the lower hardness level, if the rocker shafts were bent a little from spring pressure during installation or removal, they would tolerate that stress without cracking. Of course if the SOHC shafts are installed and removed correctly no stress is put on the shafts, but I'll confess to screwing this up once or twice and putting a spring load on the shafts inadvertently. So this was a durability consideration, because a harder shaft could crack under these conditions. In any case, though, this consideration is trumped by the grooving caused by the very hard spring clips, so Larry is going to increase the hardness of the shafts so that this problem is eliminated.

It sounds like T&D is already working on getting these problems solved, with new rocker shafts and adjusters in process. I have to send my parts back to T&D to get revamped, and this will probably take several weeks, but I'm pleased that they recognize the issues and are taking quick corrective actions. I believe they will also be recalling the other SOHC rocker sets that have been sold, to modify those also.

By the time the rockers are ready, I hope to have one or both of my SOHC engines back together, so I can continue the testing. My thanks to the forum for all the excellent comments and suggestions I received on this topic, and of course to T&D for standing behind their products.


Jay Brown
1968 Shelby GT 500 Convertible, 492" 667 HP FE
1969 R code Mach 1, 490" supercharged FE, 9.35 @ 151.20, 2007 Drag Week Runner Up, Power Adder Big Block
2005 Ford GT, 2006 Drag Week Winner, 12.0 Daily Driver
1969 Ford Galaxie XL, 460 (Ho Hum....)
1964 Ford Galaxie 500, 510" SOHC

is what we use for metal water mains, and it's some incredibly tough stuff- I've seen guys run across a piece of 6" pipe with a D8 CAT and not break it, and I pulled about 800 ft of 6" out of the ground by getting an excavator bucket under one end, and pulling it straight up out of the ground through 3' of cover, and not one piece broke- it would deflect a little pulling it up through the dirt, but snap right back straight when it pulled free

n/m

How about a combination of washers at each end of the spacer clips and rolling the edges of the clips up slightly so as to not have the edges in contact with the shafts. I'm thinking about both the grooving and the marking of the sides of the rockers. I'd be somewhat leery of the extra hard clips being used to hold the rockers located. Just a thought.
KS

If the spring clips on the shafts are stamped, it is possible they are being bent with the "burr edge" side incorrectly specified.

Stamping the flat sheet causes one of the surfaces to have a burr edge, the other side a rounded edge. It sounds like the burr side is "inside", and this can cause scratching. If the stamped flat sheet is flipped upside down before bending, the burr side will be outside, away from the shaft.

I suspect the spring clips may have a higher hardness than hte shaft, and may slowly scratch, even if the shaft is hardened somewhat.

For cost reasons the spring clips are probably laser cut, meaning neither side has much of a burr, but ya never know.

Shoe.

Jay I am sorry to hear about the problems that you have had. I knew going into this deal that Larry would help us get it right I just hate that you have had some problems. I feel that when Larry gets the changes that you and he have talked about that we will have a good peice for a change. I feel if they will hold up on your combination they will work on most everything else.
I talked with Bill Koon and he told me about the rocker seizing on the shaft problem and what he thought could be done to fix it. When I talked with Larry at PRI he talked like they had tested the adjuster pretty well. I am glad that they could duplicate the problem you were having and will be getting more adjusters. I will be sending the sets I have back and getting all of this taken care of so that we will have some of the new stuff available.
I guess this valvetrain is just a little different in a few areas than most. Glad that you have been able to help Larry get this figured out so that we will have a good rocker arm assembley available. Good luck on your projects and let me know if I can help in the future. I would like a chance to do some work for you in the future.
On another subject I think it would be neat to try some of the BeeHive springs on the cammer heads. Seems like a real good application for them.

Thanks, Keith Craft

Keith Craft Keith the beehive springs work great up to about 6,700 rpm where they loose control of the valve train. My motor with the BBC springs gets a float at 5,800 rpm but pushes through to the 6,200 max. A have the stock Shelby valves in the heads with Erson rockers, Smith brother pushrods,( hydros ) and the Crane Hydro lifters. This is a heavy mass to control at 6,000 rpms. Jay's motor should be able to work to the 7,400 rpms with beehives. Harmonics will be the question. A lot less spring load also. Maybe going to a smaller Valve stem would help also. from 3/8" to 8MM would also remove some weight. I think that there is a limitation also to a off set rocker arm for this motor. Retainers or not, there must be a twisting of the rocker on the shaft? I wonder if going back to a stock rated spring and rerun the rockers with the new adjuster would this help. Maybe they need to design a new rocker without a adjuster and use valve stem caps to make the adjustments for valve lash with??? Rick L.

I'd think the springs capabilites on a Pushrod compared to a OHC mounted spring would be quite different due to weights/mass and ratios wouldn't they?

You mention "the" beehives- maybe the ones you have are just not strong enough? Might be more that the springs are a little light, than the fact that they're beehives

I think what you are seeing is more of a hydraulic lifet issue and valve weight. We have BeeHive springs on stuff turning 8500rpms in some cases. The hydraulic rollers in the FE engine do good to make it to 6000 rpms and this is the smooth lobes. I did one recnetly with 11/32 valves and BeeHive springs and it turned about 6600 rpms with no problem.
With a solid lifter application or one like the SOHC engine where there is no hydraulic lifter I think it would work great. There are some new springs out by PAC that are the latest deal. You do not have to run as much spring pressure with the BeeHives either with everything equal.
I am just wondering if there is a lot of valve train problems due to the long chain on these SOHC engines and caring a lot of harmonics from the crank to the valve train. This is one reason most high tech race engine use a belt drive set up. We use a belt drive set up on all of our high end drag race engines. It would be nice to get one made for these things. Just seems to be a lot of problems with these engines when you vary much from the stock cams and spring pressures. I hope to build one soon and find out some of this stuff. Seems pretty expensive for what might not be any more HP than we make now with the regular wedge FE engines. I guess we will see. Good luck to all.

Keith Craft

The good news is that there's a foot of snow here, and so I don't need to get the car to the track anytime soon. So, there's time to get the engine fixed and work out the issues with the rockers. Also Keith, I appreciate your involvement because I'm sure without your interest T&D wouldn't have tooled up to do these parts. I think we'll get the problems worked out, and then it will be a great benefit to have these rockers available for the SOHC.

Jay Brown
1968 Shelby GT 500 Convertible, 492" 667 HP FE
1969 R code Mach 1, 490" supercharged FE, 9.35 @ 151.20, 2007 Drag Week Runner Up, Power Adder Big Block
2005 Ford GT, 2006 Drag Week Winner, 12.0 Daily Driver
1969 Ford Galaxie XL, 460 (Ho Hum....)
1964 Ford Galaxie 500, 510" SOHC

I hope that it all works out becaue I do believe that Larry has some good stuff. I just wanted help get something done that would be a good product for all. I feel that with some of the stuff coming along we might be able to get these SOHC engines a little more reasonable and more available. Time will tell on both accounts. Good luck with the project and I hope all works out.

Keith

since jay has apparently become the designated the test bed with his cammer motors i think larry should step up and reward jay for all his work with free products now and in the future.jay has a lot of time and money invested in this project. since the product will be sold for profit once the problems are fixed its only fair for jay to be taken care of....how many people that have dyno's at their desposal would use it for free to trouble shoot a new design for a manufacter to get a product ready to market..i just think jay is a good guy and deserves something for all his work on the cammer. no i don't own a cammer and will never have one unless i win the lottery...just think there should be credit where credit is due......gopher

........of buyers/users. It could've been the death nell for T&D's reputation and the future of other SOHC suppliers counting on their (T&D's) reputation for producing quality products. Jay definitely deserves more than kudos from T&D and Keith Kraft Racing, JMO, Rod.

Mickey Thompson's 63 1/2 #997 S/S Hi-Rise 427 Lgt/Wgt Galaxie,
1957 C-600 Cab-over carhauler w/390-4V, 2-speed rear-end
FGCofA member #4908
MCGC member #75

"There will ALWAYS be an FE in my LiFE"