Alternative Rocker Shaft Buttons (Stock Style Setup)

stickybones

What?
Joined
Dec 27, 2001
Ever have to replace the stock nylon push type rocker arm buttons (1st pic) and end up breaking half of them trying to seat them in the rocker shaft? Well that's what happened to me, and half of the ones I didn't break didn't seem to seat flush. I figured there had to be a better way that was also more secure. What I did was tap the rocker shaft button holes for a 5/16-18 thread. The holes in the shaft were just about right for this thread size (a bit undersize if I remember, but doable nonetheless without having to increase the diameter any). Note...I have the TA Performance heavy duty thick wall stock replacement shafts. Not sure how well this procedure will work with the stock wall thickness shafts. I purchased some 5/8" OD - 1/4" ID nylon tubestock from McMaster Carr (P/N 8628K31). I opened up the ID on this tubestock to 5/16" with a hand drill and cut wafers ~1/4" thick (2nd pic) using my mitre saw. Using 5/16-18x1/2 low head cap screws (2nd pic) and some thread locker, I then assembled the rocker shaft assembly using these pieces in lieu of the stock push buttons. Although there's some preparation work to do for this modification, I felt this was a better method than the stock style. The 3rd pic is of the stock style button, a freshly cut wafer, a cap screw, a small piece of the nylon tube stock used for the buttons and the box of purchased low head cap screws. The 4th pic is a shot of the final assembly. I did this mod about ~1.5 years ago and so far I haven't had any problems. The hardest part of the job was cutting the button wafers with the mitre saw. Being only ~1/4 thick, they were tough to cut cleanly and half of them ended up shooting half way across the garage after the blade passed through the tubestock. If you have access to a band saw or something more suitable to make a precision cut in the nylon tubestock, that might be the way to go.
 

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What did you use to bore out the ID of the tube stock? And what did you bore it out to?....TIA
 
What did you use to bore out the ID of the tube stock? And what did you bore it out to?....TIA

I know I used a hand drill to bore out the ID...obviously only a couple of inches at a time. I just put the tube stock in a vice and leveled it and then used the leveling bubble in my drill to keep it steady and as concentric as possible with this imprecise setup. Since the tube stock already had an ID of 1/4", it wasn't hard to drill small depths and keep it pretty well centered. I don't know what I ended up with with regards to true position of the hole relative to the OD, but it was good enough. I don't remember what drill bit I used. It was probably a 5/16" or 11/32"...whatever allowed me to slip the 5/16-18 cap screw through it with absolute minimum clearance.
 
I ended up finding screws and nylon washers at Ace Hardware that worked perfectly. The washers were just a little thinner than the button heads, but the ID and OD were perfect. Thanks again for posting this solution. I can now drive and not have to worry about breaking another one of those buttons.
 
Devils advocate... What are the chances of one or more of those bolts loosening up? Red loctite? Great idea by the way!
 
i just rebuilt my turbo motor 30 over JE pistons with rebuilt stock heads, comp roller cam kit from full throttle (210/215) . will i be ok with my stock rockers or do i need to upgrade 'em? or maybe do this mod ?
 
Stockers will work--but, you need to have correct lifter preload. Did you check that?
 
Wow. Old thread resurrected! Hope everyone is doing well. I haven't posted in a long time, but I'm still around and still have the GN. As for an update on this, I haven't touched this setup since I installed them almost 12yrs ago. The GN is my fair weather car so I don't drive it that much, but I can say that I've put over 20k miles on it since this procedure and everything is still holding up just fine.

Stay safe everyone and keep the Turbo Buick spirit alive.
Mike
 
There is a guy on engine tech here that brought up the possibility of what you did. I recalled your thread about it and wondered if I saved some of the pictures from it. Sure enough, even better I saved the whole thread. Which made it easy to find, add the pictures back, and link to it in the other fellows thread.

Good to hear that they are holding up.

RemoveBeforeFlight
 
My Dad always said the older we get the quicker time goes. He was right. I just hit 50 going on 25 and cant keep up with what day it is.
 
My Dad always said the older we get the quicker time goes. He was right. I just hit 50 going on 25 and cant keep up with what day it is.
I remember reading something that kinda makes sense. When you go from say 10 to 11, well that's like 10% of your life that far in on year. Well when you go from 50 to 51, that's like 2 percent of your life thus far in a year. With each year that passes it's a smaller and smaller percentage if that makes any sense.
 
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