I own a 63 Valiant with a 225 slant six. Rebuilt the engine several months ago. Has about 5,000 miles on it now. Recently I changed the entire Rocker arm assembly due to the lack of oil. Read alot of information on the subject and I am pretty sure I had it installed correctly.Now being paranoid, I pulled the head to check for any blockage and gasket orientation. All was OK. Re-installed the head and brand new Rocker Arm assembly. Fired it up and runs great except I still don't see any oil pumping through anywhere on the Rocker Arms. Iv'e got 58/59 lbs oil pressure. I have the Rocker Arm shaft installed with the flat foward and up, so that the oil holes in the shaft are pointing to the drivers side slightly upward and the large mounting hole toward the fire wall. I'm at a loss of what to do. I thinking about faricating my own oiling system off the oil sendin port. Tubing it up into the valva cover. Any help or suggestions would greatly be appreciated.

This kind of problem can be caused, if you're lucky, by trash/blockage in the oil port up to the head. The oil supply port is accessible via the rearmost rocker shaft bolt hole, by removing the rocker shaft assembly. Probe around with a stiff wire and see if you can't break up whatever chips and chunks might be stopping up the passage. Remove the spark plugs and periodically crank the engine with the starter to check for success.

The other common causes of this problem require more work to fix: rearmost cam bearing improperly drilled or not oriented correctly in the block (blocking off the oil transfer port to the top end and starving the rear cam journal for oil) or improperly-drilled camshaft rear journal (which means no synchronisation between the upstream and downstream oil ports in the bearing/block, therefore no oil to the top end). This latter problem is especially common with certain aftermarket cams.

Your external oiling idea will only get the job halfway done at best and that's if you were to run a hard line the whole length of the ceiling of the valve cover with pretty fancy spray nozzles at intervals. Otherwise you'll just be dribbling oil in the general vicinity of a few of the rocker arms, not lubing the rocker shaft, all 12 rocker arm pivots and tips, all 12 pushrods, etc.

You really need to fix this right to get a satisfactory result.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

When I rebuilt my 225 I expected oil to shoot over the head and onto the inner fender like my 460 V8 with a high-volume oil pump 280 comp-cam (800 rpm idle). But the 225 didn't do much at idle (550 rpm). I don't have cam bearings (aluminum block) and I was very careful to assemble the rocker arm assembly correctly. If I rev it up though, you can see the oil lubricating the valve train. My 225 has a stock oil pump and I have no gauge, so I am hoping my situation is the norm. I put over 1500 miles on the car since the rebuild and the valvetrain is quiet.

Thanks for your input. I'm quiet certain there is no blockage. However I'm curious about your other comments. I used a very reputable machinist that's been doing motor work for years. I can't buy into him not linning up the cam bearings correctly. The Cam was one I purchased from Advance Auto in an engine set. Being that I have tossed the old Cam, what should I look for on a replacement Cam to ensure the rear journal is correct? And what brand of Cam shaft is reliable. I'm dreading the fact that I may have to pull the Cam but I will if necessary.

Dan is spot on for checking out the oil passage as your first "easy" fix. We had my son's slant vatted and the head bead blasted when we overhauled it. After buttoning it up and cranking it for the first time, I was completely disgusted with the results.... no oil to the rockers. After someone mentioned that the rear rocker shaft pedestal has an oil passage, I poked and scraped around until I punched through 30 years worth of hard, baked-in crud that was blocking up the hole. I found it to be in the right (passenger side) wall of the bolt hole of the pedestal, not down in the bottom floor of the hole as I expected. Also, make sure the rear bolt has a stepped-shoulder design, it is different than all the other bolts securing the rocker shaft.

If you find that passage clear and the correct bolt is being used, you will have to look deeper, as Dan said. Apparently, the Comp Cam we installed has the hole drilled correctly and the Clevite bearings we used are manufactured properly, because we get good oil pressure. As Pat said, when I read about the method of setting valve lash with the cover off, I was concerned there would be a big splash of oil everywhere. Not so. A dribble is the best I can describe, but everything is getting plenty wet with oil where it is necessary.

One more thing you might look at while you are at it is the rocker arms themselves. Once the blockage was cleared on ours, we discovered that several of the rocker arms were clogged up, too. A very fine stiff wire (guitar string works well) cleared most of the passages sandwiched in between the two halves of the pressed-metal arms. However, I had to bake one of them with a propane torch to cook out all the crusty gunk, then chase it out with the wire. Use a can of WD40 (with the plastic spray tube attached) to blast out the passages, until you are satisfied they are all clear.

I hope you don't have to dig as deeply as removing the crank to check the bearings or journal passage, but a man has to do what a man has to do.

Good luck,
Jerry

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There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity.
Ignorance is not knowing any better.
Stupidity is knowing, yet doing it anyway.

Don't discount any possibility just on spec. Remember, even the best human beings make mistakes from time to time.
I don't have the angles at hand for a visual ID. Fortunately, Doctor Dodge drew a nice diagram that explains it all. Scroll down through this thread and you'll find it. I think part of the problem is that some of the camshaft blanks that are out there on the market are improperly drilled, which means you could get a bad one from any supplier of finished cams, but as far as aftermarket performance cams go, Comp cams seem to give more than their share of this kind of trouble.

Other previous threads dealing with this problem are Here, Here, Here.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

That's some good information Dan. This makes more since than anything else I've read or considered. If in fact the holes are drilled wrong in the rear Cam shaft journal preventing top end lubrication; oil is still lubricating the Cam journal, correct? I ask this because I'm still tossing the idea around about tubing oil up to the Rocker Arm shaft rather than pull the engine and dismantle.

H'm, let me try again:

Your external top-end oiling idea will not work well. Fix it right.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I think it would be possible to run an oil line to the rocker shaft, and feed oil into the shaft, not just "spray" the valve train. We use to do this on the old Ford "Y" block 272-292-312 V-8's.

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Charrlie_S
65 Valiant 100 2dr post 170 turbo
66 Valiant Signet 170 nitrous
64 Valiant Signet
64 Valiant 4dr 170
64 Valiant 4dr 225

Dan is right again doint try to crop up some idea about oiling. Fix the problem and everything works. Look at why it is not oiling and fix it. Thanks Ron Parker











It Aint Over Until I Win

It is always good to understand the source of the problem before you attempt to fix it.

As already noted, there is a long pathway for thr oil to travel to get to the valve gear, check all the passages and intersection points. Pull the rear rocker shaft bolt and the lower rear head bolt and probe through that intersection point.


If it is a bad cam passageway through the rear journal, valve cover oiling is a "fix" but it may be just as much work as swapping in a different cam.
DD