rocker arms falling off?

[Future_gohan]

I bought an sr20 with little to no compression in the first cylinder, owner thought the piston rings were fried, I pulled the valve cover to find the rocker arm laying crooked and kinda holding the valves down it looks like, it's completely off the valves though.


What is the likeliness that the valves are bent? is there any sure fire way to tell that they're bent/not bent before pulling the head? Think i can get away with popping the cam off and putting the rocker back on and go DRIFT! :boink:

[rcdad123]

just put it back on and run it. more than likely, it`s ok. i don`t have an sr but my friend`s sentra has popped rockers arm a few times and he just pops them back on and everything is ok, so far.

[Future_gohan]

Well I bought the motor so it's out of the car so it'll be a month or two before its in a car again so i want to make sure it's fine before i put it in a car thats all.

[RedSiBaron]

pull the head and check if its out of a car and you dont need it in right away...

[Future_gohan]

Well that is true, but I do that i'd like to get the head cleaned and shaved and I'm trying to see if there is a way to check without pulling the head.

[codyace]

Think of this way, if they are bent, they are already fubar...so you turning it over more isn't going to cause any 'new' damage that isn't there. With that said, I'd put the rockers and all shims/guides/cams back in, fire it off. If it runs, has good compression/leakdown, drive it.

[mikerbike]

You can perform a compression and/or leak-down test with the engine out of the car.

[codyace]

Ah I missed where he said it was out of the car. Yea I'd slam it together...a leakdown will let ya know if they are bent in a hurry.

[Kingtal0n]

I never understood why they wanted rockers on the amazing SR20DET engine- I mean everything else is so amazing... why not just use the typical cam over valve stuff?

I have a theory;
You know how it is when you are racing someone and something blows up? and the car just dies right there and the person is stuck and needs a tow?

Well that guy is getting laughed at right?

The rocker arm is a laugh-fail-safe. We run our cars hard, and they "blow up" halfway down the track... and we are getting laughed at... for twelve minutes.

We take 12 minutes to pop the valvecover and re-seat the rocker and drive away laughing, run it down the track again twelve minutes later!!

No one else can do that!