Tonight I continued the assembly of the 196. I was putting the rocker shaft back on the head and noticed that the oil feed hole up to the rocker shaft is under the Number 1 (front) rocker shaft stand. The oil feeds up through a channel in the base of the stand and then up through the stand to the rocker shaft. When I looked at the bottom of the stands I noticed there are oil channels cast in to the bottoms of all the rocker stands, making it unnecessary to choose which one is installed as number 1. However, the channels in this rocker assembly are shaped like a teardrop meaning that the stands must face the correct direction or the oil channel will be effectively blocked by the "short" end of the teardrop shaped channel. That whole process makes the rocker shaft stands unidirectional. And I found that the rocker shaft was assembled BACKWARDS effectively blocking the oil flow to the rocker shaft. I'll double check all of this tomorrow night before bolting down the rocker shaft, and if I am in fact correct, I'll use the Dremel tool and "machine" a channel into the base of number 1 stand to allow oil up into the rocker shaft. This was a low mileage engine and the rocker shaft doesn't even have any oil-type tarnish on it. Now I think I know why. It didn't get much oil or any oil. The owner must have really liked the sound of those solid lifters. I checked another rocker shaft from a 196 I have in the garage and it has different shaped oil channels which extend both directions along the bottom of the rocker shaft stands eliminating the possibility of the above problem. I don't want to use this other rocker shaft though because it obviously has more miles on it and the rockers don't fit quite as snugly to the shaft. Joe Fulton Salinas, CA _______________________________________________ Amc-list mailing list Amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://splatter.wps.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/amc-list