Yep, we'll be there, its close enough!

One more small hiccup. I used the rocker arm shaft from the old head, and that turned out a mistake, as the latemodel one has oiling holes in it for the rocker arms. When the motor was running the lifters were starving for oil. Got to drill out the rear most bolt as its stepped and install the other rocker shaft, cork vc gasket will be in this afternoon then we should be good to go... I hope.

Interesting. I have used non-hydraulic lifter heads on hydraulic lifter slants and never had to drill out the rocker arm shaft. Slant six lifters only need 3-5 pounds of oil pressure to pump up, and all slant sixes from 1960 on fed pressurized oil up through the rocker arm shaft and through the rocker arms.

Since 1960 all slant six rocker arm shafts have been drilled to feed oil to the rocker arms. In 1981 Chrysler used that feature to feed oil from the rocker arms shaft, up through the rocker arms, then down through hollow pushrods to the lifters. The stepped bolt actually came into use around 1977, years before the switch to hydraulic lifters.



The stepped bolt is not critical to the oil supply to the lifters since the older non-stepped bolt still provided full flow to the rocker arms. You cannot use a hydraulic lifter rear bolt in a mechanical lifter head or vice versa. You must use the bolt that came with the head, and this requires using the rocker arm shaft that came with the head. But, as I said above, this doesn't matter since the mechanical lifter head still provides full oil flow to the rocker arm shaft. All you need to do is use the hydraulic lifter rocker arms and pushrods and you will be fine.




Did you use the hollow pushrods that were in the 1987 motor originally? Did you install the rocker arm shaft with the little stamped flat towards the front of the motor and facing up? You should be fine using the 170 rocker arm shaft and bolts with the 225 rocker arms and spacers and not have to modify anything.

Here is a picture of a mechanical lifter rocker arm shaft and adjustable rockers. At the end of the shaft you can see the little stamped flat section I am talking about:



You see the raised portions stamped into the rocker arm? Those are the oil passages that direct oil to the tip of the arm and, on hydraulic motors, down the pushrod to the lifters.

Well, i was sorta wrong on that one. I believe i may have had it in upside down. Either way i ended using the shaft from the 87. I switched them out this morning since i was bored anyway waiting for the vc gasket to show. The way i had it befor the oiling holes were pointed down and toward the passenger side. The 87 shaft they point straight up. If that doesnt change anything then i will place a 1/4 stick of dynamite carefully in each cylinder, ignite them then see if that fixes it
It didnt help that the older shaft was so gunked up im not suprised any oil could get anywhere.

Um, the 69 rear bolt won't fit through the 87 rocker arm shaft. Unless you have drilled it out.

Drilled out and whole shaft cleaned and scrubbed.

and niether shaft had the stamped flat area on them? Wonder why?

The 87 wouldn't since the stepped bolt lets the shaft only install one way. The 69 shaft probably has one buried under gunk. It isn't very big.

When you get ready ive got a 360. LoL

pm sent RRC.