I would wait to install the timing cover and damper until after you degree the cam. This way, if adjustments are needed to the cam timing, you won't have to pull it back apart. Admittedly, adjustments are seldom needed, but why assemble it before you know. If Murphy's Law is in effect, the likelihood of having to make adjustments will be directly proportional to the extra amount of labor involved.

I wish I had read this earlier. When checking for push rod length, the lifter needs to be at mid lift, because the contact point of the rocker arm moves in an arc. The contact point will move across the top of the valve stem as the valve goes from fully closed to fully open. That is why you are doing this. The mid point of the arc occures at the mid point of lift. If you spec a push rod that centers the pivot point in the closed position, the variation through the arc will be all from the center of the stem towards one edge. God help you if the pivot point runs off of the edge of the valve stem at full lift. You'll be hating life if that happens.

Also, what I didn't notice mentioned above, is that not only does the lifter have to be at mid lift, but the VALVE has to be at mid lift, also. I hope this doesn't cost you a set of custom made push rods, but it'll be cheaper than the damage that could have been done, otherwise. Happy wrenching.

 

CFI -
If I measure the pushrod length w/ the lifter and the valve at half lift, won't that preload or compress (or whatever it's called) the lifter and give me a longer reading than I'm supposed to have. I read that the lifter is supposed to have no prelift, and that to acheive this the lifter should not have any pressure on it. Oh yeah, the roller tips did rest on the intake side of the valve at zero lift for lifters and valves. I just ordered the pushrods, so if I need to I can send them back. I will check again tomorrow. Thank you very much for the info CFI!! :cheers:

 

Quick update - I got the lifters that were previously stuck moving again. I just put some oil on them and tapped them down w/ a rubber mallet, rotated the cam so they would come back up, and did tapped them down. I did this several times to get the oil in the lifter bores. Hopefully they will move freely once the engine is running and the lifters can get oil in there good.

Question - how much do I torque the 3 bolts that hold the spider down? I put a seperate thread w/ this question up.

 

Ok, I'm actually getting some work done. I have encountered a slight problem (maybe)... I think the pushrods might be a little too short. I'm not quite sure yet. If you want to chime in, see my thread in the Engine Mods section.

 

Dtorc4,
Hey its me. Sorry I did not see your post till now and after your IMs. I am home now and started looking to see what I missed. I forgot about giving you the information on the PRs. From scanning the thread it looks like you measured the length at TDC or from the base circle of the cam. In other words, no lift. Correct? If so you very well might not have the correct length PRs! Not trying to scare you, but as I indicated it is a very important part of the whole process. You do not want to have it wrong. It will cost you big $ if something snaps due to bad valve geometry. Its very simple to do it the right way. You just need to measure the lifters with an indicator guage or even a ruler with very small incriments to max lift. Then once this is determined divide the # by 2 and that is the height at mid lift. Rotate the cam around till you pass TDC and achieve that mid lift height. You are ready to do exactly the same thing you did before except you Roller on the RR will be dead center in middle of the valve stem instead of on the intake side. Again you DO NOT want to depress the lifter spring when checking for the correct length. Use the magic marker trick I descibed earlier to identify if you are in fact in the middle of the stem. Do it several times and you should get pretty much the same reading +- 1/2 turn, go with the average. Mine almost always came out the same when I had the roller in the middle. If you pull the RR off and the mark left is not in the center the length you measured will be off too. One thing else. You use the RR's position on the stud (up or down) to get the RR roller in the center of the stem. If the RR is too far down on the stud, it will put you to the intake side of the stem. If you are up too high your mark on the stem will be to the exhaust side. I hope you follow everything I am saying here. It took me a while to get it all straight, but after you do it and get everythign right you will know exactly what I am saying. if you need anything else let me know!
Jesse

 

Ok, this is what I did:
found mid lift on cam, brought it down past TDC to mid lift
painted the valve stem
put the adj. pushrod in, fully closed
put the rocker arm on the stud, put lock on a couple of turns
turned the adj pr up while holding rocker steady
when I got the RR tip roughly to the middle of the valve stem, I brought the lock down until I got zero lash on the rods
I went between adjusting the pr and the lock until the roller tip was at the center of the valve stem.
I removed the rocker arm and verified that the tip was at the middle.

Did I do this correctly???