Rocker Arm/Hydraulic Lifter Adjustment

[Music] hey Motorhead's today we're going to be adjusting the rocker arms on this small-block Chevrolet so that we can preload the hydraulic lifters in it this process that you'll learn today you can use on Ford Chevy Chrysler four-cylinder v6 it doesn't matter as long as it has a hydraulic style camshaft in it you'll be able to preload the lifter and get that setting perfect before we get into the adjustment of the rocker arms I want to go back over the four stroke cycles with you really quick these cycles are very important on the time that we're going to use to adjust the rocker arms and what I mean by that is the valve needs to be completely closed before we adjust that rocker arm so let's look at the strokes really quick the intake stroke the piston is on its way down the intake valve only is open it draws the fresh air fuel mixture into the cylinder once it reaches bottom dead center and starts its way back up the compression stroke then compresses that mixture with both valves closed once the piston reaches top dead center with both valves closed the spark plug ignites it driving the piston back down on the power stroke once the Pistons at bottom dead center the exhaust valve begins to open and the piston pushes the exhaust out the exhaust valve what stroke are we ready for next that's right we're ready to restart them all over again start with the intake stroke before that piston reaches top dead center on the exhaust stroke the intake valve begins to creep open to start its stroke during this time both valves are open slightly depending on the cam this is called valve overlap we're gonna use valve overlap and the firing order of the engine to determine how and when to adjust these rocker arms we're going to use cylinders adjacent to one another or a sister cylinder if you would to determine when to adjust that cylinder and I'll go over that in a minute when we use the firing order I mentioned using the firing order to do this rocker arm adjustment is the easiest way and it doesn't matter Ford Chevy Chrysler whatever it is as long as you know the firing order it'll make your job a lot faster I've seen guys adjust rocker arms and turn that engine over 200 times before they get them all adjusted this method to work use today just a small turn of the engine just a small rotation every time we'll get that next cylinder ready to go for adjustment the firing order here for this small-block Chevy that we're doing today is one eight four three six five seven two here's the way you'll write it out to know how to rock and adjust your engine and we'll talk about that here in just a second you're gonna go four down because that's a v8 and we're gonna split it down the middle we're then gonna start with these the last four of the firing order and start over here this is the cylinder that we will rock in order to adjust this cylinder what is rock and adjust rock is basically that valve overlap that we just talked about I broke it down here rock equals the exhaust opens and closes and intake just starts to open or overlap adjustment would be to remove all loose lash and tighten an additional three force turn on the nut of the rocker arm to preload the lifter this is the lifter that rides on the camshaft and if I put the push rod in it you can see the center of the lifter collapsing now we'll only collapse until oil pressure from the oil pump pumps this lifter up do these little holes on the sides and the block has corresponding holes to hydraulically pump this lifter up and take out the lash between the rocker arm and the tip of the valve at all times if you have a solid lift cam or if you're working on an engine like I know a lot of people will redo their four-wheeler engines and set the lash on those you would actually use a feeler gauge between the tip of the rocker arm and the tip of the valve and adjust that lash to a certain specification these are hydraulic so we'll be setting or pre loading that lifter by tightening the nut on the rocker arm push the push rod down in the lifter in order to get that small cup off of that retaining wire located on the inside the rocker arms we're going to be using today or by SBI I'll show you how to install those the first thing you want to do though is make sure all your push rods on the inside of the engine are in the center of each lifter once you've established that you take the rocker arm place it over the stud then I usually add some lubricant to the bottom of this wrap rocker ball either white lithium grease or a good engine lubricant you're gonna place the rocker ball or pivot in the center of the rocker and then this nut will go on the nut has got a flat side and a cone-shaped side the flat side will go down towards the pivot and you'll also notice that there are some bite marks on the top of the nut the nut has been swedge so that it becomes a lock nut so once we get this adjustment made it will stay right where our adjustment is forever [Music] I've labeled the engine with tape so that you can see what cylinders are located cylinder one three five and seven on a small-block Chevrolet I know we're on the driver's side two four six and eight are located on the passenger side your engine may be different and it may have a different firing order one two three four five six seven eight or one two three four five six seven eight it doesn't matter as long as you reference the board like we did before you write your firing order down the same manner you can still use this process no matter what the engine or the firing order we're not going to rock cylinder number one which means the exhaust opens and closes and the intake just starts to open or we're going to get cylinder 1 into overlap for this we're gonna look in the lifter Valley area and these are our two lifters we know that this lifter leads to the intake port and this lifter push rod leads to the exhaust port we can see that the bigger port here the valve is on the inside so this is our intake this is our exhaust we also notice I've tightened the nuts down on the rocker arms until I do have some movement you don't want to tighten them down all the way yet that's what our adjustment is for so I just haven't taken the slack out I'm now going to turn the engine over on the front of the crank shaft and we're going to monitor in the lifter Valley area on that cylinder 1 again we're looking for the exhaust valve and you'll see this lifters starting to come up that would mean the exhaust valve would be opening it will go back down and when we see the lifter right next to it start to come up we're gonna even them out right like that now the intake valve is starting to open we're now on valve overlap on cylinder 1 what cylinder is ready to adjust cylinder 6 we're now going to go to its sister cylinder located a crust the engine and we're going to adjust these two rockers because these two rockers are now on the base circle of the camshaft you can see both lifters are all the way down and that's where we want to be to do this adjust I'm gonna tighten the nuts down and periodically I'm gonna feel the up and down play on the end of the rocker nose I just want to take that slack out I do not want to preload that lifter or push that push rod down into the center of the lifter I'm just getting it right there to that point now don't be fooled by the side movement I could continue to tighten this nut down and you would still be able to move that rocker arm side to side because the plunger in the center of that lifter is very weak the spring is you can see me moving it right now that movement if we look on the inside is the lifter moving away from that clip that we talked about earlier so right now I just have that slack all of what we would call the lash removed from this valve train once you're at that point you'll place your ratchet on here to where you can make 3/4 of a turn this would be 1/2 3/4 would be lined up directly down this way I did an additional 3/4 of a turn let's look inside the lifter Valley now and you can see that our plunger in the center of that lifter is not touching that clip we don't want that clip to be touched by that because it could come loose on the inside of the engine so this is our lifter preload I can now do the rocker right next to it I can adjust the exhaust and there wasn't any certain order if I wanted to adjust this one before this one it doesn't matter but we know that both of these are ready because we did our rock and adjust sequence right there now I'm going to do the 3/4 of a turn there's half there's 3/4 and I always look back in the lifter area and make sure that that plunger is not touching that wire and that I have some good preload on the lifter in other words some lash to fill up with oil all right what do we do next we're gonna see what next cylinder is up to rock cylinder number eight is next to rock or to get into overlap now I want you to notice how much I have to turn crankshaft before we're ready to adjust to more rockers all right here's cylinder eight and the exhaust valve is already open so it's gonna be closing and the intake valve will open so I'll start rotating and right there that was it so just a slight amount of turning and now cylinder eight is in overlap which one are we ready to adjust according to our chart we're ready to adjust cylinder five if we look in the lifter Valley area cylinder five is definitely on the base circle we're going to adjust these two rockers and move to the next now we're ready to rock cylinder four and adjust cylinder seven according to our chart I'm going to show you on the front of the crankshaft just how little movement that takes the exhaust valve is closing and the intake valve is starting to open that's all the more we had to rotate the crankshaft in order to be ready now to adjust the two on cylinder seven okay I've rotated it again slightly and now that I have three and overlap the intake valve is just starting to open according to my chart I'm ready to adjust to both of those are on the base circle and I'll start taking the play out of the rocker arm now we're going to start on the second half of the engine to adjust we're now going to rock cylinder six and adjust one you'll notice that cylinder six when we get to the engine is the one that's already been adjusted previously so all of our rockers that we'll be putting into overlap now and lifters are going to be previously adjusted now that we're doing cylinders to get them into overlap that have already been adjusted the lifters down inside here will not only move but you can also see the rocker arms moving too so this is cylinder five getting ready to adjust eight and you can see that this intake rocker just started to move now we'll just eight [Music] okay that's the last rocker in this sequence now we're going to go back start at the beginning we're gonna rock one which should be ready to go and we're gonna look at six we're just gonna go back in and double check or as I like to say so I'll sleep better at night knowing that when I button this engine up that everything is perfect we definitely have that adjusted correctly now I'm going to rock eight and check five definitely off the wire still have some spring load or some hydraulic room for that lifter rock 4 and check seven Rock three and check two rock six should be ready to go and check one Rock five and check eight looks good off the wire there Rock seven and check for Rock - and check three looks perfect okay we're finished up with the engine and like I said it doesn't matter ford chevy dodge whatever the firing order write it down split it up you should be able to adjust your hydraulic lifters hope you enjoyed the video like to thank Tecton tools for one thing if you haven't checked out Tecton tools website you need to check them out they've got some great tools they've helped us out on this project today and we hope you'll join us for our next video [Music]

Channel: Mitch Nelson

Views: 1,019,467

Keywords: rocker arms, hydraulic lifters, 350, small block, chevy, engine, repair, installation, diy, nelsonperformance, garage, mechanic, automotive

Id: LIfZmC_KwGg

Length: 15min 41sec (941 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 28 2020