Tried to work on cylinder head, now truck won't start

I'm confused. I removed the rocker arms and pushrods from the driver side cylinder head in my '94 Chevy S10 to take the head off, this due to lots of white smoke coming from the exhaust.

After realizing I didn't have all the tools I needed and it would take too long, I put everything back together.

Not recognizing exactly what the rocker assembly looked like before removal, I still put the pushrods, rocker arms with washer and bolt back the only way they could go.

However, I may have overtighten them. According to Alldata, the rocker arm bolt should be tightened to 20 ft lbs of torque. I only have an inch lbs torque wrench so I tightened the bolts to the equivalent 240 inch lbs (20 X

12).

Each rocker arm not only made contact with the spring, but getting all the way to 20 lbs ft required the spring to be compressed quite a bit by the rocker before the torque wrench clicked. There appears to be uniformity among all the components as to how much they were compressed.

The truck won't start, but it does crank, with a "new" sound coming from the engine. Perhaps I overtightened the bolts, I thought 20 ft lbs would be 1/4 to 1/2 turn after I could no longer hand turn the bolts, but the torque wrench took forever to click. Is there possible damage as the result, especially after cranking the engine?

Sorry for the long post, regards.

Reply to
Nadeem
Loading thread data ...

Sounds like your engine doesn't have the stop type rocker studs, not all the 4.3 engines have them. If it doesn't then you have probably caused some damage, STOP trying to start it. NEW sounds are NOT a good thing. Get out the book and go through the valve adjustment procedures. Make sure what type of rocker stud you have FIRST. I hope you didn't mix up all the parts as well, the pushrods, rocker arms and rocker balls wear in as a set and mixing them is not a good thing. If you mixed the valve train parts plan on buying new ones. And buy a proper torque wrench as well. Your not going to be able to torque a head with an inch pound wrench. I would plan on tearing that head off now regardless. Your going to need to check the valves for damage and the head itself as well. OR take it to a shop since it sounds like you may be in over your head.

Reply to
Steve W.

I don't know too much about later model engines,but I say Steve W is right. cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.