[old fords]

here's the story. On my 69 F-100 I could never get the driver side valve cover to seal. I tried 4 different gaskets and it would not seal. On the last try I was mad as I could be. I was on a back road and saw it was still leaking. I turned the truck around and floored it cause I was so mad. I was doing about 50 or so and heard something break and the oil pressure dropped . I figured I had it knocking. I ease home and find out I broke the rocker arm shaft. I had another rocker arm assembly and put it on. I cranked it up and it will smoke bad out of the driver side pipe. All I can thing off is a bad ring since the paasenger side is fine.

[onebadmerc]

Did you put the oil baffle back on when you removed the rockershaft?

[oldbogie]

Originally Posted by old fords

here's the story. On my 69 F-100 I could never get the driver side valve cover to seal. I tried 4 different gaskets and it would not seal. On the last try I was mad as I could be. I was on a back road and saw it was still leaking. I turned the truck around and floored it cause I was so mad. I was doing about 50 or so and heard something break and the oil pressure dropped . I figured I had it knocking. I ease home and find out I broke the rocker arm shaft. I had another rocker arm assembly and put it on. I cranked it up and it will smoke bad out of the driver side pipe. All I can thing off is a bad ring since the paasenger side is fine.

You turned a minor irritation into a large problem. More likely than not a piston and valve met, perhaps more than one, and you've got a busted piston and bent valve for your efforts.

The leaking rocker cover is usually caused by the many years of torquing the little bolts against a soft gasket. This dimples the area around the bolt hole and buckles the cover between the bolts. The solution consists of two parts.

1) You clamp a small diameter pipe or a socket in a bench vise. You then locate the cover's bolt holes over the "tool" and with a ball-peen hammer, gently coax the metal around the hole back to a flat surface.

2) You go to the parts store and get some Chevy rocker cover reinforcements and put then under the Ford's cover bolts. This will work everywhere except on the corners. Here you can fabricate a adapter that goes around the corner or use a hardened washer as large as will fit.

But now you've probably got a serious problem to fix first.

Bogie

[old fords]

It's still holding good oil pressure but I can still hear a slight tick. I guess this was one expensive lesson

[woodz428]

While there are some good comments, I have seen a similar problem on several long mileage FE engines. Addressing just the leaking valve cover issue, FE engines that have a lot of miles on them and may have been run short distances or had infrequent oil/filter changes can get a layer of congealed oil built up under the valve covers. This has a tendancy to restrict the oil drain back channels, often not visible at the upper entry passage. The limited drain back capacity will cause the valve cover to fill with oil and create what appears to be a valve cover leak. It is actually the oil reaching a level above the valve cover/cyl.head seam. The gaskets aren't designed to hold back an oil level, primarily oil spray. This can also cause oil to enter through the valve guide area into the cylinder causing oil burning. I have encountered this many times on older FEs. I have used a coat hanger that I untwisted to pull the crud from the drain backs and had great results. It will affect the rear cylinders first, since the engine is at a slight rearward angle. I might check out that as a leak cause, although the broken shaft is hard to tell. The loss of oil pressure was most likely from the loss of oil sealing in the rocker area after it broke.