Jonk67
Well-Known Member
Hey all, well even though I installed 1.6 roller rockers I wanted to keep my old school ribbed CalCustom valve covers so I decided to see how much clearance I really needed. I found that the interference was with the nuts and not the rockers.
VC with original baffles, you can see a circular scratch where the rocker nut hits:
First I pulled the old rubber gaskets off and stuffed some modeling clay in the VC w/o the baffles in so that I could get a worse case scenario for clearance. I figured if I could get them not to touch with no gaskets I'd have that much more clearance with my thick FelPro metal sandwich ones. First the clay press with saran wrap over the rockers (for once I had a genius moment that avoided rockers full of clay):
After 4+ tries with a piece of alum. sheet I came up with a shape that wasn't too hard to bend and was actually larger than the stock piece to hopefully stop some of the splash by I was getting. The main edge that was hitting is on the right lower side where I bent it down next to the nut. Once I shaped it properly I could set it on the engine w/o gaskets and have no contact with the rockers/nuts:
As you can see there is a 'step down' in the oil hole now, still plenty of room to pour oil in (have an extended filler tube also) and plenty of room to vent still. Tested the cap and tube and they twist on fine, no interference.
I'll use these a while once the car is running as I like the fact that they're low profile vs. the stock tall ones for rollers. I would really like to switch to some stock '65/'66 type with the tall filler tubes welded on and an angle just like the TransAm series cars had at a later date. I hope they're not smaller or shallower than these....
Jon
VC with original baffles, you can see a circular scratch where the rocker nut hits:
First I pulled the old rubber gaskets off and stuffed some modeling clay in the VC w/o the baffles in so that I could get a worse case scenario for clearance. I figured if I could get them not to touch with no gaskets I'd have that much more clearance with my thick FelPro metal sandwich ones. First the clay press with saran wrap over the rockers (for once I had a genius moment that avoided rockers full of clay):
After 4+ tries with a piece of alum. sheet I came up with a shape that wasn't too hard to bend and was actually larger than the stock piece to hopefully stop some of the splash by I was getting. The main edge that was hitting is on the right lower side where I bent it down next to the nut. Once I shaped it properly I could set it on the engine w/o gaskets and have no contact with the rockers/nuts:
As you can see there is a 'step down' in the oil hole now, still plenty of room to pour oil in (have an extended filler tube also) and plenty of room to vent still. Tested the cap and tube and they twist on fine, no interference.
I'll use these a while once the car is running as I like the fact that they're low profile vs. the stock tall ones for rollers. I would really like to switch to some stock '65/'66 type with the tall filler tubes welded on and an angle just like the TransAm series cars had at a later date. I hope they're not smaller or shallower than these....
Jon