Adjusting Rockers on 99 5.9

[Challenger]

I just replaced the heads on a 99 Dodge Ram van. Old heads had cracked seats. Anyway had the engine running for a day comes back missing. Got to checking things out come to find out that a rocker arm bolt had broken off. Upon taking another out to inspect it broke also. So now I have 2 broken rocker arm bolts. Have head fixed and put back on, now what I need to know is how should I adjust the rockers? The way I did it the first time was to bring the timing mark up on TDC and adjust the bolts down to 21 ft lbs. Any experiences with what of might happened to make the bolts break and did I use the proper way to adjust the rockers. Might want to add that only one head had the broken rocker bolts. THANKS!

[Pro 440 GTX]

Hey friend,

I was reading your thread and went WOW. Only because I just went through the same damn thing myself on my 383. I actually had two rocker arm adjusting screws break right at the adjusting nut. One as I was racing, in result bending a pushrod, and the other as i was inspecting just as you did. They normally do not do that. I guess it was a factory defect! To give you more details, I have the Mopar Performance (Crane if you will) ductile iron adjustable rocker arms and Crane 3/8' pushrods for hydraulic lifters on my 383.

Here's how you adjust your rockers or setting the lifter preload:

1. Having your valve covers off so you can see the valve springs, bump the motor and watch the spring expand open all the way which means the lifter is on the flat backside of the lobe of the camshaft. Or you can use a socket and ratchet to turn your motor instead of bumping the starter.

2. Then when you complete step one, you now loosen the rocker arm adjusting screw and just loosen the actuall bolt itself until all tension gives or the valve spring opens up all the way; meaning no coil binding or no pressure. (Zero lash)

3. Now, the hard part of this whole thing is I do not know how many turns of the actual rocker screw or bolt you need to turn to have the right valve lift on your set up. I do know that, once you have the spring pressure released, you turn it back the other way again (in my case it is with an allen wrench), until you hit zero valve lash; which means all lose play in the turn of the screw starts to get tight all of a sudden. THEN, (on my motor) I can turn up to 2 full turns which equals .55 thousands. But i only went 1 1/2 turns and it runs great like that.

4. Once this is done on that rocker, then you turn or bump the motor again and do the next one until all 16 are done.

It is a time consuming process but hey, it is worth it.

You know what? Let me leave you with this advice and i hope you try it. Once you start on your first rocker, just turn the adjusting bolt or screw (not the nut) 3/4 turn and that's all and do all of them that way and then start it up once the valve covers are back on. I know for sure a 3/4 turn will not hurt it. Plus, if your camshaft is stock, you can't turn it enough to hurt anything anyway. Please email me for help or let me know what happens.

Scott belvedere@pyramid.net

[72Challenger]

Hey Challenger,

Sounds like you've got a magnum engine that doesn't use rocker arm shafts. If so, ignore everything Pro 440 posted and go over to the Ram truck thread and ask those guys. They know their stuff. Sorry I can't help you.

[Challenger]

Your right I have the rockers without the shafts. I put everyting back together today and its running fine. The only thing that I can think of that happened was that the threads in the heads for the holddown bolt were not very clean inside. So when I torqued down to 21 ft lb the rockers were not all the way down on the pedestals. It broke the washer underneath the bolt so I think that they were not tightened down. I cleaned the threads and wow what a difference and talk about the junk that came out of them, and these were remanufactured heads from CarQuest. I did clean out the threads on the exhaust and intake the first time and they were dirty also. We will see what happens. I have worked in a GM garage for 9 years and there were some rockers that were torque downs and I never had a problem with them. So I think they were just dirty and not fully seated against pedestal when torqued down.

[72Challenger]

I hope it turns out to be that simple. Gee, you'd think professionally rebuilt heads would at least be clean...

[polarapete]

Clean Parts do not exist in the real world! This is a hard lesson that we all get to learn. After some of the experiences that I have had with machined parts, I have become completely paranoid about cleanliness.

I run a bottoming tap through all the bolt holes and blow out the threads with aerosol Brake Cleaner, followed by regular shop air all the while protecting my eyes from the crap that comes flying out. When I finally put a bolt in the hole it is a guaranteed clean hole, a clean and lubricated bolt going in and everything goes together perfectly. It takes me longer to do the job, but, I only have to do it once!

[Devilbrad]

Pro440, I had the same exact thing happen on my 383, with the Mopar Iron Rockers. Those rockers are made by comp cams and if I remember correctly they had a bad batch of rocker adjusters a couple years ago. Which is about when I bought mine!! I ended up buying a whole set of Isky adjusters and havent had a problem since. If the Magnum rockers are made by Comp, possible they came with a set of the bad adjusters? I am pretty sure the adjusters are the same for both rockers. I do also own a 96 Dakota with a Magnum motor, but use a different brand of adjustable rockers.

Brad

[Pro 440 GTX]

Hey DevilBrad,

Thanks for your reply on those rocker adjusting screws. On my rockers I have the word "Crane" stamped in them so I guess they are Cranes or maybe they are Comp Cams. Can't believe Mopar Performance would still sell junk like that. I did buy another set of adjusting screws and nuts as spares. I just might go with Isky rockers or just the screws. My friend's 440 in his '70 Roadrunner has those rockers. No problems.

It amazes me how sickening rude some people on this site can be. One of the responses to my help towards the guy with the rocker problem in his Dodge Ram, well; one guy (he knows who he is) puts his 2 cents worth in and says to the guy "forget everything I said to him." I was just trying to help the guy out and did not know that the new Ram engines do not have rocker shafts. OOOpps, I made a mistake, not perfect like other people. LOL

Oh well. Just have to take it with a grain of salt.

Thank you again for your reply and advice. God bless brother.

Scott

[72Challenger]

Pro 440 GTX,

I'm sorry you felt I was being "sickening rude". I wasn't meaning to put you down and I apologize if it sounded that way to you. It's just that there aren't any adjusting screws on magnum rockers, what you said wasn't relevant to his problem. I don't pretend to know everything either, that's why I suggested he ask in the Ram section.

No hard feelings?