Technical Poly 318 rotating Spring Retainer??

I just recently put together my poly 318 and when I was setting the lash on the rocker arms, I ran into a little problem. The exhaust valves have those rotating retainers from factory and when I was setting the lash, the rocker arm is hitting the retainer first and not coming in contact with the valve on a few valves. On a few others, it looks like the rocker arm is coming in contact with both the valve and retainer. Now, I'm pretty sure these retainers were on the exhaust valves and not the intake but i could be wrong. When the head were redone, the only thing done to them was resurface the valves and the seats and re-seat them with lapping compound but I guess that was enough to raise the height of the retainer enough. New valve springs were installed, but that should not affect the overall issue. Other than that, no geometry in the valve train was changed. i am using the same rocker arms and the same . My question is, what is the purpose of those rotating retainers and are they needed? I had never seen these before. I have a spare complete poly what was given to me and that one has the regular retainers. I am currently in the process of removing a head on that engine to steel the retainers and place them on the new build. See pictures below.

 

Why take a chance on 50+ year old valve train parts. If new retainers and locks are available I'd use them. I believe the rotaters were used to keep the valves from burning by keeping them rotating on their seats. I'm sure others will have more suggestions for you. Good luck with it. -Dave

 

Rotators were common on truck engines. Replace them with 'normal' retainers.

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Yep ^^^^^

@moonman29 you may not be the first person to do the valves on that engine and without seeing the heads on their back it would be hard to tell but from the sound of it you may have a valve or two sunk in the heads. I would take a serious look at rocker geometry aside from loosing the rotators. You may have to shim something to make it run.

@73RR would know better if that can be easily done on your particular engine he works with them all the time.

 

Good catch Benno! Some shops do get a bit sloppy and since the A engine got much respect someone may have taken a shortcut or two.
Sunk valve heads are really not a good thing and they should be corrected if they exist. Obviously, if everything was in reasonable/proper condition then there would not be any contact in the wrong places. Best to make it right while the opportunity exists.

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