my crane 1.6 self alighning rockers have been rubing the springs and the top where they sit on the valve stem they are rubing on the retainer, why are they doing this?I have the crane 10308 lt1 kit,lt4 hotcam, should I clearance the rocker 's a little so they do not touch, is this ok to do?

 

The top of the valve stem is to short or ya got the wrong keepers or retainers.

 

Probably too short of a pushrod

 

all that I have is what was with the kit , it had springs ,keepers, retainers, shims, crn 10308 is the pt# it said it was for lt1 w/ aluminum heads , have had them on for a while ,in the middle of a rebuild now and seen that they were rubing, and how could it be too short of a pushrod?

 

I second this. I had that problem when I went to the 918 beehives and ended up having to buy the NSA pro mags.

 

so the only thing I can do is get differnt rocker arms? or can I get differnt spring retainers?

 

You should not have had clearance problems with the beehives. You and Fbody1 both need to check for correct pushrod length.

 

Push rods are not relevant in this case.

 

I haven't seen his engine myself to judge what is wrong with 100% certainty.....but what I do know is that when you have the wrong push rod length it will screw up your valvetrain geometry. Improper valvetrain geometry can mean the rocker tip rolling off the valve and hitting the retainer/keeper or the rocker hitting the spring.

Fbody1: I'd do yourself a favor and get a push rod length checker kit. This will tell rather or not the rod length is an issue.

 

How can you know that? There are any number of factors that when modifying an engine can make an adjustment in pushrod length necessary to optimize the geometry. This should be checked even if there aren't any apparent clearance problems to insure that the rocker tip is contacting the valve stem properly throughout it's range of motion. I'm thinking you never checked it in your case.... Whether this is his problem or not, it needs to be checked and checked first!

 

Exactly. Too little stem protrusion.

A pushrod length problem would show up if the rocker was hitting the edge of the retainer close to the body(too short) but that contact can also happen with correct pushrod lengths and large OD springs, sometimes we have to clearance aluminum rockers to clear some spring setups.

 

How can I know That? Well as many engines as I have built for the last 40 years ya gain some knowledge.
You need to check the design of SA rollers and how they work.
If ya had pushrods that stood the rocker streight up and down to the valve stem,ya would cure the contact problem. Boy ya sure create a bunch of other problems,like getting it to run. But ya would have cured the hitting problem.So that's were the pushrod length issue stands.Not relevent!!!!!!!

 

So do you think you're the only one on the forum that's built engines for decades? You're entitled to your erroneous opinion.

 

People come on the board and give noobs wrong advice all the time and your advice won't correct the problem.Your erroneous diagnosis won't work.
I am not the only one on the board to build engines, don't claim to be, I know enough to let the people who do know what the fix is, tell the guy instead of him chasing his tail and working his butt off going in the wrong direction.
He can get that kind of diagnosis from a dealer and pay a bunch for the fix and not get it fixed.

 

I had the same problem with using a aluminum body rocker arm. The rocker arms sat on the retainer and not the valve stem. Had to go the the Comp promags which are narrower to sit on the valve stem itself. No further issues. Hope this helps.
HVY SS