ilber's stroker

[SilverXJ]

As I said earlier, those adjuster on the rockers are more than maxed out and you need longer pushrods. If that machine shop adjusted the preload they may not even have set it correctly. Are you still running the Mopar performance springs? Which side of the valve cover did you clearance?

Nice WK2. How do you like it?

[ilber]

hey Chris.
yep i do have the same setup, mopar springs and retainers. the worst was the passanger side toward the firewall, but after 2 minutes with ball peen hammer and i believe i got all the clerance i need. I made my self a promiss: if jeep goes for 1k+ miles w/o puking an engine iwill buy new tires. If I am done with spending money on rebuilding engine I will flip a coin fo a custom billet valvecover.
as far as WK2- love the thing. 10k miles ( i drove it in spring, parked it for a~ 5 months) and driving it for last almost 2 months. swapped touring Michelins for A/T Michelins. Quadra lift is awesome, body rigidity is phenominal for a unibody truck, tow capacity-just great. fuel milage on hemi and my lead foot as expected. off roading, well ok for just trail, but mostly i don't like "custom paint striping", ok I will come out and say it... i feel it is too nice of a truck to push stumps, crush on rocks or sink in the mud hole. don't get me wrong i bought the truck to use it but I have mixed feeling about such usage of the shiny toy. the only thing would have done different, perhaphs got one with a darker leather.... this very light grey, almost off white leather is a pain to keep clean, but with the command view moonroof opened on a sunny colorado day the cabine seemes really bright and welcoming!

[SilverXJ]

Passenger side... odd.. when I had clearance issues it was with the springs on the driver's side. The push rods aren't hitting anything below the rockers, like the head where it passes through? You mentioned antipump up lifters... what lifters are you running?

I hear you on the pin stripping. The WK2 is a bit too nice to take bash up off road... yet.

[ilber]

the clerance was all over, but the worst is on the passanger side. no traces of rubbing or binding anywhere on the spring or push rod. rockers on the flip side does have tell-tell signs.
i have compcam cam and lifters...
come to think i have a spare set from "fiasco 1.0"

[ilber]

first step"
ordered Compcam 7704-1 good for 8.8-9.8" since my starting point is 9.575" that's the first step...measure the correct length, before spending another $200 on pushrods

Hard to trust any shop at this point, especially if at the end of the day they would not stand behind their labour... so might do this one at my leasure in my garage...if I F' it up- well I WILL BLAME MYSELF

[ilber]

the engine has compcam 7656 9.5" push rods, trend performance ones from first built are 9.575". tool is in so I should check if 0.075" is sufficient move the contact area. ( yes dry erase marker/pursian compound is in my future).
* what is the preload on the lifters?

after I reset the comp cam pushrod and let the jeep warm up/charge the batteries/drove around property for 5 miles. climbed a dirt pile/flex suspension/drove through snow drifts.
in process turn off and restarted engine 3-4 times...
well i turn off engine, let the kid climb in, started and pah-pah-pah backfiring.... so lifter thing is out of the question, since it was less than 3 minutes between turn off and restart.
so need to check geometry on the push rods

[ilber]

grr!

[SilverXJ]

Your pushrods are still too short and the rub mark on that one pushrod isn't normal.

Preload should be .020-.060". I'm not sure what contact area you are talking about, but changing the pushrod length has no bearing on the rocker to valve contact. The only thing the length of the push rod will effect is the preload and correct rocker setup. My pushrods, with the kb944s at 0 deck, .043" gasket, and HS rockers are 9.635"

[ilber]

[YouTube]http://youtu.be/Cqx8Cs6O6Vo[/YouTube]

http://youtu.be/Cqx8Cs6O6Vo

[SilverXJ]

I don't know why you posted that because it doesn't apply to our rocker setup.

If you notice those rockers adjust by a nut over the pivot, ours do not adjust like that. The only way to adjust valve sweep is to either mill the boss or add shims. You can play with the push rods all you want and the adjusting nut on the rocker arm and the valve sweep won't change noticeably.

[gonridnu]

Yeah, what he said:)

And I agree your pushrods are too short. I don't know those rockers well but, with every manufacturer I've worked with, if your adjuster is below the top of the lock nut the pushrod is too short. When the adjuster hangs out the bottom like that it severely increases the amount of load it transfers to adjuster screw threads and diminishes the life of the rocker.

Ideally the adjuster should be one turn down from bottomed out in the rocker as that will give you approx .050" adjustment in that direction and provide full thread engagement for the adjusting components. I used to sell Harland our adjuster and if they are still using it, which is likely, that is where we designed it to work at.

I generally set hydraulic lifters at .045" of pre-load unless it is in a race engine that will be checked on a regular basis.

And yes it looks like that pushrod is rubbing on the cylinder head. You need to check your adjuster screws and make sure they are not chipped around the bottom. When the p-rod hits something it can put them in a bind and chip the cup on the adjuster screw.

[gonridnu]

OMG ... I just read more of this thread!

The thrust bearing issue is not from a clutch disc. Perhaps an extremely stout pressure plate but not from a disc.

My bet would be your shop did not "set" the thrust bearing by tapping the crank forward before tightening the cap. Failure to do so often results in only half the thrust bearing taking the load. Either that or they did not check crank endplay and it was tight. From the sounds of your other problems it does not appear they check everything they should. They for sure have no f'n clue when it comes to setting up valvetrain.

[ilber]

hello, back.
I finally cooled down...took me over a year before I decided to touch the jeep w/o a burning desire to set the thing on fire/blow it up. Now I am on my personal vengeance.
So last thing i did is got a pushrod length checker and beat the valve cover some more for the clearance.

the plan:
1. I will use slightly longer trent performance pushrods from built #1
2. I need to set preload, i was under impression that .030 is the right value, but I am getting different answers


after engine runs at least for a few weeks w/o throwing pushrod(s) i will look into new tires ( my MTs are toast milage and now dry cracked)

need to look in t-case rebuilt/beef up/maybe atlas if i can justify the "want"

fix the door/handle that i broke when i "blew the gasket" and flew off the handle
probably need 2 new batteries...darn my red top and blue top are shot

New body mounts, possibly 1" lift by rough country.

Silver, can I have you come out and fix my stuff? or anyone knows of JEEP-stroker guy in denver area?
well, I decided to check in and update.

...the dream is to take yj to moab this year...
onward, upward!
ilber<- now can behave humanly

[ilber]

never mind I just reread what i was about to do 6 months ago. I am back on track.
MEASURE the pusrod length.
order pushrods ( keeping in mind that SilverXJ's are 9.635")
hwhat i would like to do is get a points HOW TO DO PROPER VALVE LENGTH CHECK.
i have an idea in my head, shop has different take. but as i learned this is the place to get schooled.
if i find JEEP-stroker guru in denver,that would solve a few things:)
...as far as machine shop saga.... well we got to litigations. shop paid some $$$ so i would go away....
ilber

[SilverXJ]

never mind I just reread what i was about to do 6 months ago. I am back on track.
MEASURE the pusrod length.
order pushrods ( keeping in mind that SilverXJ's are 9.635")

Your mileage may vary on the length, but my block was 0 decked and the head was slightly shaved. Base circle of the cam and lifter variances also play a part in lengths.

what i would like to do is get a points HOW TO DO PROPER VALVE LENGTH CHECK.

Not much you can really do about that though. If the valve tips have moved up from factory location you can put shims under the rocker to compensate, but a simple valve job shouldn't require that. I would recommend just checking the contact pattern and making sure it is some where near center. You may want to use checking springs or a solid lifter with the running springs. If you have a spare old lifter you can take it apart and make it solid but using nuts and washers inside. There are more optimal methods to check geometry such as minimal rocker movement (left and right) and 90* at mid lift, but we really can't do that much to optimize that.

As far as preload don't dwelt on it to much. .030" will be fine as well as .020" or .040". Its not that critical in builds like outs where we aren't running the engine high in RPMs.

And I really don't know why anyone would want me to touch their stuff with my bad luck. Although it only seems isolated to my junk.