Hello. I have some stage 2 se heads that I'm wanting to use the early style 400 rockers on and they don't seem to be centered on the valves. It's like each pair are too close together by an 1/8 or so. The same way on both sides. Thanks.
I'm not familiar with the 69 rockers, but it looks like if you switch the exhaust with the intake it will line up. Perhaps the shafts/rockers were disassembled at some point and reassembled incorrectly. Jim
The later rocker arms have separate left and right rocker arms. Looking down at the head from the fender, the left rocker goes to the left of each pedestal/shaft bolt, and the right goes to the right of the bolt. Not sure about the early rocker arms. https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/buick,1970,gs+455,7.5l+455cid+v8,1379763,engine,rocker+arm,5656
If no one chimes in b4 Monday, I have several original never pulled apart sets of these rockers, i can verify then which ones goes where.....but you can see they are different between l/r
I believe there should be a thrust washer between the rocker arm and the clanp. Looks like it's missing.
I thought about the thrust washers too, but none if the pictures I could find online had any. I could swap the intake and exhausts and it looks like it would help, but there is a hole in each one facing towards the spacer that looks like that is the way they are supposed to go.
Maybe this will help. It is from the 1967 Buick Chassis manual. Clearly, the rockers have specific offsets left and right. Maybe you have a set up that was assembled wrong, or with the wrong parts.
The rockers are in the correct positions. The little notch toward the spacers is for oiling that area. Are those the correct spacers/retainers for the BBB? I know the 350 spacers are narrower. I'd just get some shims to space the rockers out from the retainers. TA does list rocker arm shims to align their roller style but you could use them there. I use valve spring shims to space out my rockers correctly. The idea of swapping rockers around certainly looks like a good idea. Maybe you can add a small notch for oiling? Also I'd worry more about how they align with the pushrod holes. That is where you don't want any pushrod to hole rubbing so I'd want it right down the middle.
I tried swapping them around and it helped with centering them on the valves, but it made the pushrods rub on the outside of the holes. I'm just going to use a later model set for now that line up fine until I get some rollers. Thanks for all the advice and help.
