-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Donegan [mailto:tr6greg@fuse.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2005 9:27 PM
To: tbermudez@fuse.net
Subject: Swarthout Roller Rockers - Caution!
This is an open note to all of you folks who purchased/have roller rockers
in your TR6 engine which were manufactured by Jim Swarthout back when that
little controversial situation was going on during 2002-03. I was one of
those folks who purchased them and installed them in my stock '72. They
were installed strictly in accordance with the instructions included with
the rockers, no variances at all. They did just what Jim said they would
do - increase the low end pull a bit and let the engine breathe better at
higher rpms - rev more freely to the high rpm range. Well, after driving
with them for about 500 miles or so I decided to pull the valve cover again
and just check them visually and see how everything looked - I had already
checked the clearances after the first hundred miles and all was well...upon
inspection, I saw that there was evidence of a bit of galling and spalling
on a couple of the rollers, at least what I felt was. I checked clearances
again, all ok, and continued driving. Drove to a few shows, some backroads
fun stuff, and then to the TRials last fall in Door County, Wisconsin. The
car ran great as usual. Got home, put it up for the winter and this spring
I decided to check the rockers out again before going to the Louisville, KY
British Bash. When I pulled the valve cover off, I saw lots of flakes of
ferrous metal inside the valve cover, and more flakes scattered about the
rockers, and various other places...not good at all. Upon inspection of the
rollers, I found that most of them displayed severe spalling and galling
with deep marks in the rollers where they contact the valve stems, they were
coming apart after less than 3000 miles! I drained the oil, flushed the oil
system out, changed the filter and reinstalled the stock rockers back in the
engine. BTW, I cut open the oil filter as well and inspected it and found
it had quite a bit of ferrous metal in it from the rockers-not as much as I
expected to find, but plenty to make me take the action described above. I
run Castrol 20W-50 oil in my engine, always have, FYI. The rollers
evidently are not hardened enough to prevent this is my opinion, but it's
just a guess, haven't done any testing yet. I spoke with Ted Schumacher at
the Mid-Ohio vintage races this past weekend, and he says that Swarthout's
rockers have only gravity feed oil holes in them, which does not feed enough
oil to the rollers, hence the increased wear I'm seeing. I have the
external rocker feed oil line installed on my engine, have since it was
rebuilt 10,000 miles ago, for whatever it's worth, don't know if it helps or
not, but I have to think it sure isn't hurting any. It appears at this point
that I've escaped any obvious engine damage, oil pressure is still good and
no abnormal noises, etc. So that's my story, short and not so sweet, my
hope in broadcasting this is to hopefully help to prevent any one else from
having the same problem or worse...and engine or bearing failure, oil pump
damage or anything like that...so if you're running Jim Swarthout's roller
rockers and haven't looked at them lately, I highly recommend that you pull
that valve cover and take a good look! HTH
Greg Donegan
Hebron, KY
72 TR6 CC82492U
Back stock again!
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