VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1929-1932 Build up the rocker arm tips with --

Will it work to build up the 1929 rocker arm tips with mild steel rod and a MIG welder? If not does anyone know what they do use to restore the rocker arms with(rod and welder)?

In the case of my 28 Chev 4, I linished and then finely polished the wear groves out. The small amount of material removed is compensated by your valve screw adjustments.

Regards

Ray

Many of these are too far gone to reshape as that has been done before. I remember someone offering this service and was hoping I could find out how to do it as welding is not a problem but I would like the correct material so as not to waste the time.

Are the rocker arm shafts cut or worn or gouged also?? If so, I would recomment The Filling Station to have it all done for you. They did a great job on my 31 and the rockers that were too far gone, the man doing the rebuilding found some used ones that he had to replace the shot rockers that I sent in.

I would think that if you weld them up yourself, one would need some hard surfacing rod to use and than you would still have to cut the excess off to the correct angle. From my welding experience, hard surfacing can be a different cat to apply.

Whatever you choose, am wishing you the best of luck and hope all turns out well for you.

Jim.

If you need the tips built up get a professional welder to do it as welding can reduce the strength of cast iron if not done correctly.
Tony

The rocker arms are cast, I've welded cast and to do it right the material must be preheated, you must use nyrod rods, this is a nickel rod, reverse polarity works best, imediately after welding place into a bucket of warm sand and let cool slowly.
As you can see on the old rocker theres not much grinding. B29

The rocker arms are a steel forging and not a casting. Castings have thin parting lines, while the rocker arms have a wide forging line which is ground away after the forging process.

I would share the concern of others re welding, as it has to be 100%
Another avenue you can explore is that Billy Possum, and maybe Filling Station, as they carry Billy Possum parts, has a change over service for 29 rocker arms, which includes refacing and fitting new bushes.

Regards

Ray

You all are probably right about hard surfaceing the tips of the rocker arms. Using mild steel and MIG, or oxeace torch and a nickle steel rod (like gunsmiths use)without hard surfaceing, probably won't last over a 50,000 or 75,000 miles or 80 or 90 years of hobby driving.

I am sure these are forgings and I am a competent welder so the question is what welder (torch MIG or TIG) and what rod. Obviously, someone else is doing it and the whole idea of restoring this popcorn truck is doing it myself if I have the equipment and knowledge. I need the knowledge.

I would use the torch myself as that is what I am more exoerianced with. I haven't had to do but a couple of rocker arms, most of mine were just cupped out enough to mess up a feeler gauge. I used a 1"x42" belt sander grinder with a 220 grit belt and smoothed out the rockers after I welded up the worst ones. I know several guys that use a fine grinding wheel on a bench grinder with success, just go carefully . You may even want to use a file to finish them off if you don't have a power grinder. It ain't rocket science!

OK--goggled it and found an old motorcycle site that advertised building up rocker arms with nickel chromium alloy about .040" thick and then resurfacing it about .010" to get the correct shape. Soooo I called Weld Mold Co and talked to Dave. He felt the origional rocker arms were probably oil quenched forgings from my description. He recommended using 888 NiChrome Weld Mold alloy rod to build it up with a TIG welder. Add metal in small increments to not destroy the rocker arms hardness and lightly peen with a ball peen as you add metal to remove stress. It would be good to normalise them at 500 to 600 degrees after you are done(won't the wife love me for using her oven). Will give it a try but won't be able to report the working result for years due to lots of work to be done on the truck

I did mine with mig and built jig for bench grinder to get proper radius and turned out just fine

What filler rod did you use with your mig welding? Have you been able to check the wear since your repair and how many miles have you put on your chevy since the repair?

good morning-I used .30 standard mig wire and as weld happens so quickly I saw no excess heat transfer to cast rocker and when trying to file found it to be extremly hard and with lubrication feel It will outlive me by many years-I did have many to practice on and no I haven't driven yet but feel it's probably strongest part of valve train