Hello Everyone. The car I'm working on is a 1979 Hurst Olds with a 350R engine. It has 80k miles on it. There were a few of rocker arms and bridges ticking when I got it, so I decided to replace all of them. As usual, cylinders 3,5,4,and 6 were fairly worn from the egr heat, (the bolts attaching these rockers were not as tight as the others; from the wear?) but I noticed that the valve stem tip on number 2 was worn down. It was probably a little less than half the height of the others, and there was a sharp edge around the tip. So I continued on replacing everything and figured it would still be noisy. When I started it, I was shocked to find that it was totally quiet. So the question(s) is, what causes it? What is the long, or short term effect? Will the valve stem break and fall into the cylinder? The inside of the heads looked very clean with no sludge. Sorry for the rambling, just want you all to have the back story.
Thanks,
Jeff

 

Tip wear is normal but not to an extreme as you have said. There is enough preload in the valve train that the new rockers quieted everything down....for now. Valves can be refaced and the tips are machined as well but excessive wear would require a new valve.