Valve adjustments never stay adjusted

[Piledriver]

For the Type 1 why don't people use Wasser vanagon rockers and adjusters? Those things last forever, original adjusters can last 250K miles on the vans.

10mm screw and heavy as sin.
Something hollow with a 6mm hex down the middle and a hard, properly radiused tip could change that.
(it was discussed long, long ago in Jakes forum here or his own forums)

[Devastator]

Something like aluminum rockers and a 10mm screw?

[Piledriver]

Something like aluminum rockers and a 10mm screw?

Aluminum 1.55:1 rockers already exist as rollers, but insane expense and apparently with stress risers in the design.

Hollow screw (large, deep hex inside) with hardened tip would be viable.
We were BSing at one point about a Ti screw with SiN tip brazed on, but likely way over the top.

[Jim Ed]

I think I will pack up my rocker assemblies and send them to a machine shop that works on aircooled VWs.


Here are the instructions that I got from aircooled.net for installing the Scat swivel feet:

http://vwparts.aircooled.net/SCAT-Swive ... /20118.htm

Scat swivel feet installation instructions

--------------------------------

Product Instructions for aircoolednet swivel feet (Scat swivel feet)

Start by removing the valve cover. Loosen the locknuts that secure the stock adjusting screw while the rocker assembly is still attatched to the head. Remove the two nuts securing the rocker assembly to the head and remove. Remove the stock lock nuts and set aside. Remove the stock adjusting screws.

Usually, when installing 911 or Courier style adjusting screws into VW rocker arms, about .060" of the rocker arm must be shaved off to allow the adjuster (which has a thicker head) to screw into the rocker arm as far as it needs to. Some people add shims under the rocker assemblies to space the rockers away from the valve enough to maintain enough room for valve adjustment, but this disrupts proper valvetrain geometry, and should not be done. You do not need a machine shop to take the .060" off the rocker, a simple angle grinder and a steady hand can get the job done easily. Make sure to grind in the direction of the rocker. If you grind with the blade cutting across the rocker arm (which is the easiest way), the "gouges" can be the location of a rocker arm failure. If you have the grind marks running the length of the rocker arm, this does not happen. 

With the rockers clearanced for the adjusters, screw the adjusters into the rocker assemblies and install the locknuts from the stock adjusting screws. Re-install the rocker assembly to the head, making sure the pushrods seat in the rocker arm cups before tightening down the whole assembly.

With the new adjusters installed, you need to re-set the valve lash. If you run aluminum pushrods, we recommend .006" of lash cold, and if you run chromoly pushrods, we recommend .000" to .001" valve lash cold.  If there is not enough room for the adjuster to allow any lash, more material must be removed from the rocker arms so you can back the adjuster out. You can add shims between the rocker and head if you have already shortened the rockers .060-.100". Proper valvetrain geometry is where the adjuster screw is directly in-line with the valvestem at 1/2 lift. If you measure it at 1/2 lift and it's not in-line, the geometry is off and should be corrected.

WARNING: If you have a cam and rocker combination that provides around .450" of lift or more, you need to check that the swivel ball HOUSING is not contacting the valve, which can occur at 0 lift, or full lift. If it is contacting, running the engine this way will peen over the edge of the housing, which wedges the swivel ball in place and will chew up the valve stem, as well as the adjuster. If your cam has too much lift and causes this problem, you will have to upgrade to the 911 style adjuster for your application.

Maybe it's time to try swivel head adjusters.
Ainokea

I got a set of swivel adjusters from CB Performance and some of them froze and made loud click, click, click noises.
Then I got a set of these
http://vwparts.aircooled.net/SCAT-Swive ... /20118.htm

for my '73 Beetle with a stock Type I 1600cc dual port engine.
They worked fine and did not make noise.
You might ask them first if they will fit yours.

[Piledriver]

A machine shop isn't going to setup your rocker geometry for you unless you take the whole motor out and deliver it, and expect to produce many Benjamins to pay for the hours they will take trying to figure it out, assuming they even want to try.

Short version:
Grind ~2mm off the adjuster screw boss facing the valve to make room for the adjusters.
Clean up
Reinstall with the new screws, using the supplied spacers under the rockers.

You MAY need to shorten and reslot the screws (dremel/reinforced cutoff wheel) when done so as not to pound holes in your rocker covers.

This is a Very Good Time to install solid spacers and HD studs, esp on a T4, as the 7mm factory rocker studs are horrible.

Everything else is just chin music saying you really should have spent the extra $5-$10 for the Bugpack 911-type units.

I'm a fan of the 911 style adjusters, they don't have a ball that can flip over and make you have a heart attack thinking you just dropped a valve, and have far more angle capability.

[Marc]

A machine shop isn't going to setup your rocker geometry for you unless you take the whole motor out and deliver it, and expect to produce many Benjamins to pay for the hours they will take trying to figure it out, assuming they even want to try...

Took the words right out of my mouth.
Stock rocker studs are fine in a Type I, but "solidizing" the shafts is a major upgrade - although a PITA to do correctly.
I've used the Mazda/Courier style captive-ball adjusting screws in nearly every race engine I've ever built (and that's a bunch) and have never experienced a single "flipover" failure or any trouble due to lack of angularity range - but they've always been set up correctly. True, they can be a little tricky to adjust but once you've done it a few hundred times it's no big deal - it's just a matter of finessing the feeler gauge into place...and if you're running steel/CrMo pushrods you probably don't even use a feeler (rather, simply set the lash to where the pushrod just spins freely for ~.0005" lash) that's not even an issue.
The beauty of the Mazda-style adjuster IMO is that even if it gets horribly worn, it's still going to function just fine...the first time you'll notice there's even a problem is when you remove the rockers during maintenance and discover that a ball has come loose. In contrast, when the 911-style ("elephant-toe") adjuster fails, the pad comes adrift (possibly finding its way into the engine's basement and causing all sorts of havoc before you even realize there's a problem and shut down)...then the naked stub of the adjusting screw woodpeckers the hell out of the valve stem, too.
Another nice feature of the Mazda adjusters is that they act as a "poor-man's" hydraulic lifter. When set up correctly, engine oil pressure is fed to the backside of the ball, taking up excess lash. That just cannot happen with the elephant-toe adjusters.
If you want to sidestep all of the quality-control issues with cheap-ass knockoff swivelfeet, just go to a Mazda or Ford dealer and order the OEM-quality Japanese items. They come one to a box with a 12mm locknut included, but a VW 13mm nut fits fine.

Here's a little treatise I wrote on the subject of rockerarm geometry, exactly four years ago today;

If your net valve lift isn't too much greater than stock you should be able to get away with stock adjusting screws if the geometry is good. What you're looking for is the adjuster being in line with (parallel to) the valve stem when the valve is 50-60% open. Ideally the adjuster will have approximately the same number of threads showing below the rocker as are showing above the locknut, but that's a secondary concern (juggling stock pushrod lengths usually takes care of that; 1300/early 1500 are a little shorter). To achieve this parallelism, you need to raise or lower the rocker stands. Raising is simple using shims, lowering gets trickier `cause you have to grind down the stands or alter 40HP stands but it's not likely that you'll need to lower. Once you get that part set, double-check to make sure that the tip of the adjuster is staying away from the edges of the valvestem, both at valve-open and -shut. It's normal for it to track slightly off-center (side-to-side), this is what gives the valve a little impetus to turn as it works...poor-man's valve rotator effect.
Solid rocker shafts are a worthwhile modification for any engine, even with stock cam and rockers, that sees a lot of high-rpm use and I recommend them with dual carbs (much easier to overrev if you miss a shift, may break a stock springclip). They take a bit of fussing to get set up right but they remove the major weak link in the valvetrain.
To set up the solid rocker shafts you'll need to juggle the .015"/.030"/.060" shims that come with them and some stock .040" washers until each exhaust valve rocker has .004-.006" sideplay when checked with feeler gauge, and the shared sideplay of the intakes is .006"-.012" (some better-quality rocker shafts like the ones Berg sells have a fixed center tube or one that can be secured with setscrews, with those the individual intake sideplays should be set to .004-.006"). With brand-new parts I try to stay to towards the tight end of these numbers, since they will wear in and loosen a bit. Do this with the pushrods removed, it'll go MUCH faster. There's enough slop in the rockerstand studholes to allow this to change every time you take the rockers on & off, so you'll need to snug the nuts down and tap the shaft on the ends until the exhaust sideplay is right before you tighten the nuts fully. Make sure that the rockershims (if needed) don't hang out the side and rub against the rockers.
If you decide to go with swivel-tipped adjusters, the basic rockerarm geometry requirements are the same as with stock ones (parallel to the valve at roughly ½-lift) but with high lift you'll need to double-check that the range of the swivelling part isn't exceeded - this will break adjusters in a hurry.
Remember how I said it was normal for a stock adjusting screw to be slightly off-center to help make the valve rotate? This won't work nearly as well (if at all) with a swivel-tipped adjusting screw, so it needs to be acknowledged that valvejob life may be shorter with swivelfeet. So-o-o-o there's really no need to keep the adjuster off-center, may as well get it centered over the valve tip as closely as possible for maximum strength & stability, especially with stiff duals or triples. This requires moving all of the rockers to the left. Let's talk about the right-hand head for now: #1 intake and #2 exhaust rockers can be moved over simply by reshimming them - make sure that the shim O.D. is small enough that it doesn't bottom out on the rockerboss/rockershim, you may need to trim a flat on it for clearance. To move #1 exhaust and #2 intake, the righthand side of each rockerstand needs to be ground off; this needs to be done with some precision since it must be flat and straight within ~.001", so it could mean a trip to the local machine shop if you don't have adequate equipment to do it yourself. Of course you'll need to re-setup the rocker side clearances and you'll need a little more shim thickness to compensate for what's been ground off the stands.
There are 2 types of swivel-foot adjusters commonly available. Berg sells the "elephant-toe" style which require an allen wrench to adjust but are short enough that valvecover clearance is not a problem. They are almost as easy to adjust as stockers, but if the toe comes off the internal ball-end, that small ball-end will damage the valve tip in no time flat, especially with stainless valves. (And it may go into the basement where you can spend lots of time finding and retrieving it). There's a similar style that uses a screwdriver slot and is longer; it may require dimpling of the valvecovers for clearance.
The other type was originally intended for piston Mazda/Ford Courier engines. It has a female cup on the end which houses a ball with one flat side. Until you get the hang of it, it's a pain trying to get a feeler gauge between that flat and the valve tip, and it's not as obvious when the flat is oriented correctly compared to the elephant-toe style. Can be a little tricky installing the rockers and keeping all the balls' flats against their respective valves as you bolt things down. Another drawback to them is that they usually require grinding away a few thread's worth from the underside of the rockerarm in order to make room for the bulky cup and still maintain good geometry (you only need to remove enough to allow for backing them out ¼ to ½ a turn to allow for future valve adjustments, though). They almost always will require dimpling of the valvecovers. So why do I prefer them? Simple. When they wear out, they still work! The cup holds the ball captive until the rockerarms are removed. I have run these for years and years and worn out plenty of them, but never had to go chasing down a lost tip and never had valves/retainers/keepers peckered to death by the remains of one. I can't say that for the elephant-toes, and I don't know of anyone who runs them that hasn't had one break, either.
If you look at a stock-type rocker you'll see that it is rifle-drilled from the adjuster end all the way through to intersect the oil hole in the pushrod socket. This is what lubricates the rockerarm/shaft, and normally the drilling from the shaft to the adjuster end isn't used for anything past the manufacturing process. It's perfect for the Mazda adjusters, though - they have a relief and drilling that can take oil from here and feed it to the ball. It almost acts like a miniature poor-man's hydraulic lifter. One precaution: after drilling, the rockers are supposed to have the hole on the end welded over. Some slip out of the factory without this step and it causes no problem with stock adjusting screws, but it's asking for trouble to use them with the Mazda adjusters - use welded ones so oil pressure to the rockershafts isn't lost.