The AB video says to remove rocker arms by loosening the bolts incrementally. When I have the arms off, should I blast them with brake cleaner then WD40 or penetrating oil? How would you clean the rest of the valve area without getting anything making its way further down? How about the valley pan area and all the ports? I want to clean the lifters - are they easy to disassemble and reassemble? I’ll keep the lifters and pushrods organized. I saw an ultrasonic parts cleaner with degreaser doing a good job, so I might try that.

 

you need to keep strict disassembly order of left and right arms, including springs and washers and arms. mark each arm. leave the lifters and push rods in place. lay everything out on a nice clean bench. then you have to carefully clean out each oil hole in each arm (it feeds the cup). these get clogged up. then clean the shafts. then reassemble in EXACTLY THE SAME ORDER. if you don't, the wear patterns will not match and you will get ticking lifters (I'm assuming they did not tick before you took them out). Were your heads milled? If you really want to get serious, you can measure the hydraulic lifter gap and push rod lengths and adjust pedestal shims as needed.

RPi Engineering - V8 Engines

I got a set of shims from Rimmer Bros...

 

I bought a cheap ultrasonic cleaner and a bottle of ultrasonic cleaner detergent from Amazon during my rebuild project , it worked wonders. It makes a loud high pitch buzz though, you definitely want a door between you and it while you're working!

 

Looking at the document on v8engines.com, I think this cam shows the discoloration that’s mentioned… I wasn’t sure how to replace it, but the front cover and everything is back on now, so it’s probably too late for that… I’m a bit hesitant to disassemble the rocker arms, but if it’s more realistic for me to remove the rocker arms as an assembly to remove the lifters and rods, I could give everything a bit of a cleaning that way, but I don’t know exactly how and if it’s worthwhile. I thought I could try disassembling the lifters and seeing if that’s just extremely tedious or if I could put them in an ultrasonic parts cleaner with a degreaser fully assembly and that would be good enough for now, I’d just do that - also soak them in oil before reinstalling, or use assembly lube when putting them back.

 

There is no need to disassemble the rocker arm assemblies.

Yes, i am yelling!

 

That's a super clean looking engine. Unless you're slugged up to the point of creating oiling problems, there is no benefit to cleaning your engine internals. More risk of harm knocking debris (or worse, dropped parts) down into the engine to cycle thru than benefit from having cleaned those parts.

Leave it all together, close it up, and just keep driving.

Edit: oh, and that cam lobe looks in good shape. All you're seeing there is oil staining. If a lobe is starting to wipe it will lose its somewhat polished finish and often you'll start to see pitting.

 

Thanks, I can simply replace the valve covers gaskets, valley pan gasket/seals m, clean things a bit and put it back together. Maybe I’ll take pictures of what I see in case it looks dirty above. Would it help to spray the lifters or anything while they’re still installed with anything like penetrating spray to help them along? There definitely was ticking at one point, but using more viscous oil helped (15W-40). I can’t remember if it totally cleared up the ticking or only under certain conditions like when the engine was hot and driving or idling. If there’s anything foolproof I should do while the valley pan and valve covers are off, I’d like to do that. If I see sludge I’ll try to clear it out.

 

As alluded to above, don’t clean off any sludge unless you can be 100% sure that you will capture all of it. Dislodged bits can make their way into oil passages, plugging them up, causing a lot more problems.

 

I like getting all sorts of opinions, but I guess it won’t be that bad to just replace the gaskets/seals and run it again. I wanted to clean things since I found a lot of sludge in the sump, but it sounds like that’s too much trouble unless you hoist the engine out. Is it worthwhile for me to remove the rocker arms with the heads to have them hot tanked then straightened at a machine shop (I found one with a tank, not sure if they prepare heads) and I’d continue with the head gaskets? I was shown low pressure in a compression test years ago (one of the cylinders on the driver side, possibly 5 which is the one that shows the misfire).

I couldn’t tell of this was pitting on the cam lobes or not since I didn’t really check it before closing it up, just had some pictures to look at after. Either way it’s staying for now since the front cover is on and that was enough of a hassle - not so bad after it was all done, but the first time with any of this work is different. I don’t want to do it again on this engine anytime soon though.

I’m just double checking that after leaving it without oil for a year it’ll be OK to simply replace the gaskets, fill it and start it following the other procedures for a new oil pump and inline thermostat (also PS pump and water pump). No need to oil anything like lifters or rods beforehand or replace o rings/clean injectors, remove rocker arms with heads and deal with head gaskets… Thanks again, just like to deal with what would be best to do now as long as it’s feasible for me.

 

I have rebuilt several rover engines and have found that often the rocker arm oil holes are blocked with sludge. Why bother to clean them if you don't clean them all the way? The oil holes can't be fully cleaned from just one end. Doing that pushes the sludge back into the the rocker arm shaft oil space. You can see 'sludge' in the pedestal base....




arrow shows oil hole location