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
