Technical What do you think caused this on the valve?

My buddy took apart a set of FE heads, pics are how he found the valve. I think the top rocker corresponds to the valve.

Edit: I should add this happened to 4 valves (exhaust) on the drivers side head.

 

Lack of oil is my guess.

The lack of oil has caused the tip to gaul, exhausts are hotter so it’s affected those more. If you measure the overall length with a decent one from the other side you should find it shorter.

If it is that then you should look for a blockage in the rocker shaft, rocker pedestal, head/block feed or the cam bearing has moved.

There is a reason Ford built them as top oilers. At 1000rpm in a traffic jam you want the oil to the top end, you loose it and things go pear shaped pretty quick.

 

PS if you’re using the heads the guides will probably be knackered too.

 

I would bet on the rocker shaft was installed upside down.

 

The special length bolt , it’s time to verify it was in the correct location also .

 

I’ll have to have him seek the info for that.

 

The longer bolt goes in the pedestal that has the oil feed, the hole for it in the head is deeper as the top is chamfered and has the oil feed hole, it’s obvious which one it is when you look at the head.

 

Do you know if the motor smoked ?

 

He sent me a short video of it running and also of the exhaust pipe, I didn’t see any smoke and it sure sounded like it had a mild cam in it. I mean it sounded pretty good and like I mentioned, sure couldn’t detect a puff of smoke.
He has the heads off as he was going to put his headers on, ended up with a few broken exhaust bolts, and one funny drilled hole into one previously broken bolt (I think that’s what it was).
If it wasn’t for the broken bolts that he couldn’t access, he’d have never pulled the heads and seen the stem tip damage on the valves.

 

To me, that looks like corrosion from setting a long time. Crankcase vapors and moisture are tough on internals.

 

Could just be age. The tip surface slowly work hardens from constant pounding and eventually becomes brittle and starts flaking off. The surface of railroad tracks fail the same way.

 

Where should the holes in the shaft be oriented?
Thanks

 

He’ll be taking apart the other head in the near future, so will be able to post more info when done.

 

I can't help there, it has been decades since I have worked on any FE' I do know the rocker shafts can be installed more than one way, with only one being correct.

 

The stands can be swapped side to side and as best as I recall the stand for oiling is different . Your really digging deep into remains of brain capacity , I was under 20 when I owed by last FE . I’m now 65 .

 

I meant to update this thread.
The tube was oriented correctly.
One side didn’t have the cut down bolt, ie all bolts were just 3/8ths bolts.
The other side had the cut/narrowed bolt, but in the wrong position.

Thanks to all who replied.