Hello all. My son saved all he had, sold his car and bought an all original '65 cutlass F85 a year ago. He has been enjoying it but on a cruise around town the motor got very noisy. Towed home, opened up and the plastic timing set had disintegrated, ton of sludge in pan, etc. One thing lead to another he did a basic rebuild on it. Cleaned cleaned and decked, honed, new bearings, rings, timing set, reground cam, new lifters..... Heads were cleaned resurfaced, resealed..

Got her back on the road and started getting ticking. he traced it to rockers. a few of them remain loose even fully tightened and torqued down. I can see the valve side tips are very worn and the pivots area seems worn out too. We want to put new rockers, but these #2 heads are impossible to find rockers for. He bought a set of roller but I got him to hold off installing as it is just a random 3/8" set he found online. I was about to have him buy from Oldsrocketparts until I did a review check and see all the nightmares...

Can anyone help? Poor kid just wants his baby back on the road.

 

The V8 rocker arm itself, 2nd generation 1964 330 CID thru all V8 1974, is Oldsmobile p/n 401384. Most aftermarket suppliers have that rocker arm readily available. RockAuto lists several well known brands to choose from, Melling, SealedPower, Enginetech, and SBI. They will also have the gaskets needed. You may get the parts cheaper from a local auto parts store since RockAuto charges a shipping fee.

 

Summit is cheaper for a Melling set and you get free shipping and possibly additional discounts.
1965 OLDSMOBILE Melling MRK-540-1 Melling Rocker Arms | Summit Racing

And Amazon at even less. with free shipping through prime


And through Jeggs direct, I assume also with free shipping and possibly additional discounts.
Melling-MRK-540-1- - JEGS High Performance

 

Lamrith,
Can you post a picture of the head showing the rocker arms ? I did a 65 425 engine a few years back and ran into the same problem because apparently some of the very early 65 engines used a stud for the rockers instead of the later bolt down bridge setup. You might have the same setup and I could not find rockers for them. I ended up converting it to the new style. I had to buy some unusual bolts and washer for spacers but it turned out very nice. I have some pictures somewhere of what I did.

 

With the head milling and block deck work, the push rods need to be measured for proper length. In your case, they most likely need to be shorter. If they are too long, it's a plausible cause of premature rocker and cam lobe wear due to the rocker bottoming out the lifters and binding against the valves. Inspect the valve stem tips and rocker contact pattern at full valve lift.

Could be time to pull a few things apart to measure and visually verify the lifters & cam lobes didn't suffer.
If all these items check out OK, it could just be that inferior rockers or trunions were installed during assembly.

Do you know how much material was removed from both surfaces and how thick the head gasket is?

Olds valvetrains of this era are not adjustable in OEM form. That's why push rod length is important anytime the block n heads are machined. It is important to know exactly what parts to purchase. Off-brands and will-fits are not suggested.
These are not SBC or SBF engines.

Snap some pics of the failed parts. There are a few engine experts here who can weigh in.

 

I think this might be what he has. I will see if I can find a picture of the stud that holds it down.

 

Another picture.

 

Hi,

I believe 65 used a different size stud vs later engines 3/8's sticks in my head so check before you order anything.

Regards,,
Jim

 

The 1965 heads do use 3/8" studs instead of the 5/16" bolts, but the ROCKER ARMS are exactly the same as on any other 1965-90 Olds motor. It's the pivot blocks and bridge that are unique to the 1965 motors. Replacements do not exist. If the problem is confined to the rocker arms, you can replace them with new and reuse the pivot blocks.

 

Joe,
I dont know if you remember when I did the 425 a few years ago. I ended up drilling the new style pivots for a 3/8" bolt and used socket head screws to mount them. I honestly do not remember if I had to cut anything off the bottom of the pivots but i dont think so. Here is a pic of what i ended up with. I think I still have a box of the bolts and washers at the shop It worked great.

 

Also the reground cam may have a smaller base diameter than factory.

 

I have a set of the 1965 valve train hardware for sale here on CO: 1965 Unique 3/8” valve train hardware.

 

Hmm, I always thought the 64 was unique and 65-90 was the same. Learned something new.

 

I also used the '66 and later bridges on a '65 head. Standard grade 8 hex head 3/8" bolts of the correct length with flat washers worked fine after drilling the bolt holes in the bridges. perhaps the one piece bridges are no longer available and thus the need to use a socket head bolt for the conversion.

 

I was trying to remember why I used the socket head bolts and that is probably the reason

 

That also works