A little background to start. I'm new to the forum- and slant 6's. Just got a 78 Plymouth Volare, motor seems to be pretty built.
I noticed a little ticking in the top end so I pulled the valve cover to inspect. I found TD 1.50 ratio rocker arms.
What I noticed is my cyl 4 rocker arms have excessive play back and forth(sliding towards the front and rear of the engine on the rocker shaft). A feeler guage tells me I have just over 1mm of play. Cyl 3 also has some play, around half a mm. The rest of them seem nice and sturdy.
I was thinking it was either an issue with the rocker shaft retainers or the composite spacers in between the rocker arms, but neither show any signs of excessive wear.
After some searching on here I found a post that mentioned that the center rockershaft retainer is supposed to be longer than all the others(which sits in between the 2 pairs of rockers I'm having play in). My engine has the one longer retainer all the way in the front of the engine.
So my question becomes, does this longer retainer actually belong in between the center? If so, it is longer on one side than the other- which way does it go in?
In case that is not my issue- do factory slant 6's have those composite spacers? Or are those specific to these aftermarket arms?
Sorry for the long winded post, but I wanted to be specific. Thanks in advance!