luckythirteen13

putting in new roller rockers and was wondering if the lifter will expand once there is oil pressure (i.e. the motor is on)? just afraid of over tightening the bolt that holds them down.

mdvaldosta

Yea their self adjusting, just tighten the rocker nuts down to spec and oil pressure will handle the rest.

luckythirteen13

thanks md. it f*cking raining now so i cant work on it. it hasnt rained in 2 years and now its puring on the one day class is cancelled.
one more question though......the instructions say, tighten the rockers down untill you cant spin the push rod by hand. then give the nut a .25-.5 turn more. knowing the oil pumps up the lifter, would you recommend the quarter turn more or that half or inbetween? its a daily driver if that helps.

mdvaldosta

are you sure your reading a manual for a 5.0? Sure thats for a typical pushrod setup, move the cam until the lifter is on the underside of the cam lobe and tighten a half turn after it stops wiggling... but you don't have that setup yours is self-adjusting. Just tighten it down till it stops, about 20 - 25 ft lbs.

luckythirteen13

thats what came with the afr heads.....but now that you mention it, its instructions for all afr165's (ie. sbf and sbc) i like your way better. just torque down to 20-25 pounds....thats it?

roundman

soak the lifters overnight in some fresh engine oil first before you install them, this way they will have some oil in them when you first start the engine. better still, get a oil pump priming rod and pull the distributor, insert the oil pump priming rod in large drill motor and prelube the engine by running the oil pump with the drill until the oil pressure comes up to normal, turn the engine over by hand while doing this to get the oil pressure to all the lifters too. then drop the distributor back in and fire it up!