Having a slight ticking noise I decided to pull the driver side valve cover only to discover a pushrod had eaten away at one of my GMPP guide plates. The rocker was way off the center of the valve spring and not to far from falling off.

Two of the other three guide plates on that side were showing signs of wear too. I haven’t pulled the passenger side yet to find out how those look.

I ordered some new trick flow guide plates, 30400623, and was wondering if I should order new poly locks as well, or just re-use the ones I have as long as none are cracked or broken?

Thank you,
-Greg

 

Shouldn't be a problem reusing the polylocks.

 

I agree.

You should get the Isky adjustables and check your PR length to be sure. I doubt the trickflow guideplates are any different from the GM ones, if not worse.

 

I'm using TrickFlow guide plates, and my valvetrain is in near perfect alignment.

 

I was searching posts about the GMPP guideplates and it seems that there was a batch that were not hardened and some people were having problems with them getting worn down by the pushrods. It seems that i have a couple myself.

I also read that there are quite a few people on here running the trickflow guideplates and havent seen any issues. I will give them a try and just check on them every so often. The car is not my daily driver nor does it get driven a lot.

I will re-use my poly locks as long as they look okay. Thanks for the help.

-Greg

 

If you want to as a test, hit the side of the gmmp plates with a file, and then hit the side of one of the trickflow ones. Compare the results. Probably be a real eye opener, my gmpp plates were very soft next to the trickflow ones. Which even after 10k miles showed no wear.

 

Please do. I'd like to know the results.

 

I finally got around to changing them out. I ran a metal file across a trickflow guideplate a couple times and no wear. I did the samething with a GMPP guideplate I pulled off and the file dug right in eating up the metal.

I am glad I cought this before the pushrod ate through enough material to allow the rocker to fall off the valve spring.

It's good to have the car running again