Yeah, that dadgum Chebbie. Might have know it would, knowing my luck with them. The Vette got a tap in it, sounded like a lifter. Took off the valve cover, one of the intake rockers about fell off. Nut had backed off or wasn't tightened properly. Adjusted all the valves on that side, all were loose, put it back together, cured it for a week or two. Then the other side started making a racket. I figured another loose rocker, tore it down, yep same thing, all valves loose, one rocker sitting sideways hitting the baffle on the valve cover. Adjusted everything on that side, cranked it with valve cover off, still making a noise, but on the other side again. Took that valve cover off, yuk! Not liking what I see! Spring sticking straight up, cap laying down beside it, found one half of a keeper. Guide is shot, valve wiggles side to side and brass is coming out. These are the first aluminum heads on a Vette. Nowhere I looked online stocks them, only cast iron ones. Guess I'll get my machinist to rework them and put new guides in. What gets me is the interior of this engine is super clean. I'm thinking it has been reworked in the not so distant past. But I'm also thinking they didn't really know what they were doing! I'm hoping the piston on that cylinder is OK, the valve still moves up and down easily, so maybe it was just going up and down with the piston. Will find out when I get it off. There goes my hot rod money for a while. Gotta keep the missus happy though, so I guess I get to work on a Chebbie for the first time in years!
Check the pushrod length on it before you put it back together. To short or to long will eat a guide up.
You need to sell it & buy her an old Ford. All jokes aside, I hope you can get it repaired as cheap as possible. Maybe it won't eat up all your hot rod money.
I was looking on eBay last night at aluminum heads. Came across a set of original L-98 heads, same as mine. One thing I noticed right away was they had pushrod guide plates, mine don't. I know the old style iron heads had small pushrod holes, these aluminum ones have huge slots, we're talking 2"-3" slots, width ways and 1" tall. I don't know if mine never had them, being only late 86's have the aluminum heads, or if somebody left them off. I'm thinking when I put it back together it will get some, as well as new pushrods and maybe some stamped steel roller rockers as well......
Not sure I'd mess around with original heads. seems like a good excuse for Edelbrock or AFR, Pro topline, etc...
i dont know much about those motors but some heads used pedestal mount rockers like on the 5.0 motors. i seem to remember there were some rocker arms that had tabs went along the sides of the valve stem to keep the rocker in alignment. it does seem that you have found part of the problem if there is nothing keeping the rockers in proper alignment. i would think the motor would only run for a few minutes before the rockers would start falling off the valves.
