Chevy 235 NO OIL TO THE ROCKERS!

Ok guys,

I'm very cranky at the moment, it's been a BAD garage night. I thought we'd be firing up Faye, and instead we've discovered that we have no oil to the rockers. Tom Langdon told us that we should prime the oil pressure to check that we were getting oil to the top end before firing up the engine, so we followed the instructions and have run the **** out a drill trying to get the oil up, and it's not working.

We took a flat screwdriver and stripped the handle off and then stuck it into a power drill. The flat end is down in the hole where the distributor goes. We have oil pressure (you could feel resistance build when we first started the drill), and we have oil in the oil filter canister. We have nothing whatsoever in the top end after running the drill for over 10 minutes, and then for another 5.

What now?

Stacey

 

muahha now u love that 235 dont ya... take your raocker arms apart and make sure they are clean and the little tube that goes into the head is clean as well. they like to get clogged up. my old 235 only oiled the front half. never found out why but the motor only lasted 300 miles any way (due to a whole diff problem) Is the head you have on the motor the head for that engine? if im not mistaken there are centain oil p***age ways for each head and block. try pulling the rockers off and see if you have oil comming up thru the hole in the head. the next step after that is to pull the head back off and make sure the two holes line up. im not a real expert so hopefully some one with more detailed knowledge will chime in... or call tom back tommrow morning. he lives like 10 min from ill go over and tell him to help ya out haha

 

did you clean out the rocker shaft, my cuzins had no oil, we cleaned it out prelubed the rockers and the oil was flowing nice

 

My whole cylinder head was hot tanked and magnafluxed and then I had a complete valve job done. The head is pristine so build up can't be it.

Stacey

 

but didnt you use a diff head then what was on the motor? i thought u needed a new head last year cause i was going to send that one down to you when my ole lady went to baltimore. but you should still take your rocker arm shafts off and take a can of brake clean to them...

Then let us know what year your head is (and a number perhaps) and what year the block is (and again a number) and we can find out if the oil p***ages meet.

 

Isn't there a head bolt that has a hole or groove on it. I thought the wrong bolt can block oil to the head.... hmmm.....

 

Is a 235 like a small block, where the distributor housing forms part of the oil p***ages? I've worked on a few 235's, but I always used an old distributor, with the gear pulled off, to pre-oil them, and always got oil up to the rockers. However, it's been long enough ago, that I can't exactly remember what the bottom end of a 235 distributor looks like.

 

I think ZMAN is right, I would check to see if all the rocker shaft bolts are the same, I think the 1 that goes onto the pedestal that the oil comes into should be thinner to allow the oil p*** up to the shaft,.....or maybe that was the ford's???

 

I could be REALLY wrong (don't know sixes well) but weren't the early 216 and 235 motors non "oilers" meaning they didn't have oil pressure up top? Could it be an older head?

FONZI

 

The 1954 and later 235 truck engines had oil pumps. Not sure about the car engines. Pre-'54 and all 216 used poured babbit bearings.

 

if all parts re good and clean it could be wrong head gasket blocking the oil p***age

 

I think you have the slotted headbolt in the wrong position.

Billy

 

OK, to answer some questions...

The engine is a 235 out of a Chevy truck and the head is an 848 head which has been completely gone through. None of the headbolts are "slotted" in fact when we were putting the engine together the topic of the mysterious head bolt came up and I made a call to Langdons Stovebolt Engine Co. and gave him the head number and engine number and was told that my engine did not use the slotted headbolt. The head didn't have a slotted bolt in it when I got it, and after talking to Tom, I didn't try to find one. I believe the oil comes up through a hole in the head just below the center of the rocker arms. There's a little tube that seats in this hole and is connected to a cylinder that both rocker arm shafts slide into. My understanding is that the oil goes up the tube into the shaft and then out through little holes on the top the the rocker arms.

This engine is fully pressure oiled (one of the main reasons we're using it). The screwdriver trick is accomplishing the same thing that is mentioned above about using an old distributor. I've got oil pressure everywhere else, but something is keeping it from getting to the top end. I guess well start pulling everything apart next.

Stacey

 

Action Girl do this, I promise it will work and it's super easy.
Look for the oil pressure light fitting on the carb side of the engine, there will be two holes in the block, one's for the return, make sure you use the pressurized one.
Now get a T fitting, I've forgotten what size it is but it's common. Now get some copper tubing and compression fittings, it's the thin size like 1/8". You will find a square headed plug on the other side of the head right below the rocker cover almost dead in the middle. Put another fitting on there.
You will get pressurised oil running right up into the rocker ***embly. It's more than enough to keep your valvetrain from self destructing.
If you're running an oil filter you won't be getting filtered oil to the rockers, but it's only a small amount of oil that remains unfiltered.

I hope this makes sense, I did it to my '54 Chevy and it works like a charm.

 

Stacey, remember this post?

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28629&highlight=headbolt

I'm no expert but every 6 I've pulled apart has had the oiling headbolt.
You can make one, it's not that difficult, or I do have an extra I can send if you need.

 

Yes indeed I do, I just double checked it this morning. I'm still not convinced that the headbolt is the issue (expecially since I've had the block cross-referenced) before I put the head on, but at this point I'll try anything.

I think we can make the bolt up and see if it works.

Stacey

 

I was having the same problem with the 62' 261 inline 6 in my 59. I did what Nads speaks of, but I ran the oil through the filter then up to the rockers. Works great. I get lots of oil up top now.

 

I had a problem with my 235 that oil would pump with a drill but not with the distributor. It turned out the there's a sleeve for the vac advance/dizzy at the base of the distributor that has a set screw. I loosened the screw, pushed up the vac advance, tightened the screw and placed the distributor back in. Wallah..oil pressure. That one had me confused for days until a couple guys on the board mentioned to check it. It's pretty scary that the motor would run with the distributor partially in!

-Rich

 

In the case of the screwy headbolt... I think that by looking at it you wouldn't guess that it actuall blocked off the flow to that tube. If I remember correctly (to last summer) your description sounds just like the 235 I was using, with a little oil tube that inserts into a hole in the head. The tube on the one we had mounts around the rocker shaft and puts oil both into the shaft (where it wraps around the shaft), and also spits it out a tube on the top. The bolt we had was just a regular bolt with a shaft/threaded area that was "D" shaped when viewed from the bottom, instead of round.

Can you post pictures of your setup and we might be able to show you which bolt is/could be the culprit?

 

would it hurt to put the headbolt in weather it needs it or not?

 

First off, thanks for all the ideas. We have a couple of things to try and plan on trying a few tomorrow night.

I did get a call in to Tom Langdon and we talked about the particulars. The first thing he said to do was to loosen the rockers and see if oil comes through that way. He still believes that the head bolt isn't the problem but said if I remove the bolt in that position, oil under pressure will flow up through the hole if an oiling bolt goes there. The gasket could also be a culprit but we'd need to pull the head to see if that's the case. If it comes to that, we're probably just going to run a line from the block to the fitting on the head like Nads suggested above.

I also learned something very interesting today with respect to oil filtration. Tom said that this engine does not benefit much from having an external oil filter as roughly 90% of the engine oil will never go through the filter. He said that to make the oil go through a filtering system correctly, an engine modification would have to be done during the build stage. He went so far as to recommend removing the canister filter we installed saying that in his opinion it was "just another place for a leak to develop" and didn't do much to prolong engine life. I'm fine with doing this, and trust his opinion, I was just suprised to hear this suggestion. He said as long as I keep up on oil changes, I won't have a problem.

Anyone else running unfiltered 235's?

Stacey

 

Hey Action Girl,I think that if you check for o/p with the bolt removed that Tom refered you to and it doesn't have any, you might be able to remove the oil tube and just stick something down the hole and perforate the head gasket with it and then check again if it has pressure then,use the pressure to flush out the perforation and save yourself the trouble of removing the head.Then make a flatside on the bolt wth a grinder or put it in a lathe and turn it down a few thousanths,say .005 or so, so as not to weaken the head bolt too much and have a ball.

T.OUT

 

Action Girl , we used to have a 57 truck that didnt have a filter ever. Ran like a top never skipped a beat, however the lube guy at the quick lube said it was going to blow up, with out one. Since it was already 35 years old I just ignored him. Jay

 

I was fighting this same problem today on a 350 v8. A lot of Hambers gave me good advice, but what worked was turning the engine over slowly with a socket on the damper pulley WHILE I used a drill to spin the oil pump. It took a while to get it to oil, but it does oil now.
I'm not sure WHY it worked, but I suspect it had to do with getting oil into the lifters.
I have no idea if it'll work for you, but its alot easier than tearing down the engine again.
If you do try it and it works, let me know....

 

The 235 in my '60 Chevy wagon didn't come with an oil filter and it ran for 43 years, sure it smoked and the insides of it looked like The Creature From The Black Lagoon's underpants, but it still ran.....very reliably too.

 

My engine builder has a couple of old inlines that were unfiltered - the crankcase was completely solid with what looked like black jello, except where the rotating ***embly clearanced itself. Looked pretty gross, except they still ran fine when pulled.

I wouldn't worry too much about filtering the oil as long as it has regular oil changes.

 

The no oil filter thing just doesn't sit right with me.
I did the conversion on dad's 261, 100% of the oil runs through a 2 quart (over kill) filter.
I think it really helped to get more oil flow up to the rockers as well.

 

What year is your 261? Is it a 50's 235? Hmmm therein lies the rub...

 

It's a 58 261, Canadian built Pontiacs come with them.

 

I would not question tim langdon. he IS the inline guy. And he is right about the oil filter system only 10 to 15% of the oil actualy get directed to it do to how the oil flows in the block. run straight 30 and change it every 2000 miles and you will be fine hell even 1500 is better of course.

The first step i would take is pull the rocker arms off and the tube and see if oil is comming up thru the head where the tube is suppose to go down. if not then see if you can get a light in there and see if the head gasket is blocking it. if so do as some one said earlier and try to punch a hole in it. try to do what you can with out pulling the head off ya know.
if that doesnt work then take that 10% of oil that goes to the filter and do like nads said. just flip that tube so its heading to the intake/exhuast side of the motor and run your line right into that. you can get all trick and make a little fitting go thru the valve cover with xtra line in side of it so u can stll pull the valve cover off with out to much trouble.

let us know where your at on it im intrested to see what comes of this.

Bryan