At the begging of this season my car was running great, up until about a month ago. I was taking a long drive then I started to hear a loud ticking/loose part sound coming from under the hood. I pulled over and popped the hood and it seemed like the sound was coming from the passenger side valve cover. I did few slow RPM raises with the TB and the higher the RPM it seemed to go away. I immediate headed back for home. This weekend I started taking it apart and noticed that my Bowtie 1.6 RR's looked like that had some unusual wear on them. So I took a few pics. If notice at the tips there seems to be some crushing type wear, it is on all the rockers. Is that normal? Would that cause the loose/ticking noise? BTW these rockers only have about 5-7000 miles on them and I bought them new. Thanks guys for your help!

 

Looks like you are running self aligning (SA) rollers rockers on offset retainers. You need to get a set of non self aligning rockers (NSA) to clear the retainers. The difference between the two are the shoulders on the SA rockers that protrude out and keep the roller tip on the valve stem. NSA rockers don't have those shoulders because they use a guideplate on the pushrod to keep the rocker aligned. Either that or you have to get a new spring setup that will clear everything.

 

I agree.

 

Wow, I had no idea. After about three years this is the first time I've ever had this problem. So are the rockers shot? If not, would I be able to get a different set of retainers to accommodate them?

 

Anybody?

 

Yeah, you got the wrong combination of parts, resulting in interference. The rockers are pretty much toast as far as being SA. If possible, you could hand clearance the rockers to eliminate the interference and then run guideplates to keep them lined up.