Rocker bearing failure - how far to tear down?
10-20-2020, 04:46 PM
#1
Rocker bearing failure - how far to tear down? I have a 14 Caprice PPV with an L77 6.0 I’m in the middle of cam/converter swap.
Got the motor out a couple days ago, flipped it over today and pulled the oil pan, and I found a mess of needle bearing parts in the oil pickup screen. 163 rollers. With 66 rollers per rocker, that’s 2 rollers short of 5 bearings worth, but I have no clue how many I’m actually looking for.
I’ve had the heads off for a while, I installed a BTR trunnion kit a few weeks ago and all the stock bearings were intact when I pressed them out. So this car had several rockers fail at some point(s) and it seems the tech just replaced the rockers and called it a day.
I can’t find any stray rollers anywhere else. Nothing in either head. Nothing in the oil pan, with baffle removed. Drain plug isn’t magnetic so no help there.
With the engine on a stand and easy enough to get apart, how far should I go looking for remaining rollers or chunks of races?
Got the motor out a couple days ago, flipped it over today and pulled the oil pan, and I found a mess of needle bearing parts in the oil pickup screen. 163 rollers. With 66 rollers per rocker, that’s 2 rollers short of 5 bearings worth, but I have no clue how many I’m actually looking for.
I’ve had the heads off for a while, I installed a BTR trunnion kit a few weeks ago and all the stock bearings were intact when I pressed them out. So this car had several rockers fail at some point(s) and it seems the tech just replaced the rockers and called it a day.
I can’t find any stray rollers anywhere else. Nothing in either head. Nothing in the oil pan, with baffle removed. Drain plug isn’t magnetic so no help there.
With the engine on a stand and easy enough to get apart, how far should I go looking for remaining rollers or chunks of races?
10-20-2020, 05:34 PM
#3
TECH Senior Member
One might assume that 2 of them stayed topside and were found/chucked long ago. Who knows why the rest weren't searched/rescued. I would bet 5 bearings met their end and were replaced by a sloppy mechanic. (No, not THOSE sloppy mechanics.... lol)
10-20-2020, 09:08 PM
#4
ModSquad
iTrader: (6)
You’ve had the heads off for a while now and if you didn’t see any rollers in the lifter trays up top the only other place I’d look would be on top of windage tray...which would have rolled off when you rolled engine over on the stand. The good news is the rollers won’t carry through the pickup screen, as they are too big. This obviously happened before you got the engine, and if all has been well so far, I’d say your good. No other place they can hide really.
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G Atsma (10-21-2020)
10-21-2020, 07:01 PM
#6
ModSquad
iTrader: (6)
Send it.
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G Atsma (10-22-2020)
10-26-2020, 09:10 AM
#9
TECH Addict
iTrader: (1)
I have a 14 Caprice PPV with an L77 6.0 I’m in the middle of cam/converter swap.
Got the motor out a couple days ago, flipped it over today and pulled the oil pan, and I found a mess of needle bearing parts in the oil pickup screen. 163 rollers. With 66 rollers per rocker, that’s 2 rollers short of 5 bearings worth, but I have no clue how many I’m actually looking for.
I’ve had the heads off for a while, I installed a BTR trunnion kit a few weeks ago and all the stock bearings were intact when I pressed them out. So this car had several rockers fail at some point(s) and it seems the tech just replaced the rockers and called it a day.
I can’t find any stray rollers anywhere else. Nothing in either head. Nothing in the oil pan, with baffle removed. Drain plug isn’t magnetic so no help there.
With the engine on a stand and easy enough to get apart, how far should I go looking for remaining rollers or chunks of races?
Got the motor out a couple days ago, flipped it over today and pulled the oil pan, and I found a mess of needle bearing parts in the oil pickup screen. 163 rollers. With 66 rollers per rocker, that’s 2 rollers short of 5 bearings worth, but I have no clue how many I’m actually looking for.
I’ve had the heads off for a while, I installed a BTR trunnion kit a few weeks ago and all the stock bearings were intact when I pressed them out. So this car had several rockers fail at some point(s) and it seems the tech just replaced the rockers and called it a day.
I can’t find any stray rollers anywhere else. Nothing in either head. Nothing in the oil pan, with baffle removed. Drain plug isn’t magnetic so no help there.
With the engine on a stand and easy enough to get apart, how far should I go looking for remaining rollers or chunks of races?
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G Atsma (10-26-2020)
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Che70velle (11-25-2020)