All,
I'm forwarding this message on behalf of Greg Donegan.
It's a summary of HIS experience with Jim Swarthout's
Roller Rockers.
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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