Date:         Wed, 15 May 1996 17:43:00 -0500 
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         vwbus@TCPBBS.COM
Subject:      T4 rocker arms?

Quick question here, while assesing my parts supply to
build the new motor for the '78 I find myself really short
of nice rocker assemblies, shafts and arms.  Problem is
all 3 of my cores a '77, '78, '79 have had less than ideal
care as oil changes etc have gone in their lives.  The '77
and '78 have about 150k on them the '79 is unknown.
Now the thing is this, out of all of them, 12 rocker assemblies
I might have a mere 2 arms with their related half of a shaft
that show only "polish" and no ugly wear.  The rest all
have some varying evidence of galling, with some having
at least one nasty scrape that will EASILY catch your fingernail,
some with a couple of scrapes per rocker, some with nasty
pitted galled patches of metal.  Sometimes the arm is better
than the shaft, usually both are about even.  I am in a quandary
as unlike bug parts, you just don't go out and buy sets of
T4 rocker assemblies for $100 or so.  If I stick to the best
set out of what I got, how should I clean em up?  A bit of
hand honing with emery cloth I figure?  The other thing of course
is only the loaded side of the shaft toward the head has wear.
I could I imagine flip over the shafts to wear the previoulsy
unloaded side.  The only difference I see is that the mounting
holes are chamfered on the side toward the head but I don't
see that chamfering the other side would hurt.  Anyway anybody
with advice, please do tell.  I also seek wear specs on the shafts
and bore in the arms, mine all feel a tad loosish, the Haynes manual
(the only one I got at the moment) only gives a spec for the shaft
so far as I can tell.

Oh I note that the '78 still runs fine with it's shafts being some
of the worst of the lot so maybe this isn't such a big deal, sure
looks bad though.

John