Mr. Jones

This is a set from back in Mar. of 2009 (that was the shipping date).
I keeped all the old paper work because I had heard of the other YT rocker failures at that time.
I had started buying parts early for a motor rebuild for the winter of 2009/2010. These rockers have about 5000 miles on them.

Friday morning I was about 410 miles from home headed for my 4th of July vacation. I started to here a valve tap. I slowed down and it was nearly gone. Then I got a load knock/popping sound. Pulled off the highway, check engine light came on. I looked for the first safe place to stop. Shut it off. Looked it over and did not see anything unusual.
Asked the wife the start it, Made the oddest popping sound. shut it off and had a few choice words.
I called AAA an asked for a flatbed truck and two boards.
The drive was very good about putting the car on the truck-backwords.
Got it on without scrapping the nose. We brought it to my place in VA.and its in my garage there now 445 miles from home.
I bought some tools and heres what I found.





I will call Yella Terra tomorrow and see what they say about replacements.
I know they were good about handling this some time back. I hope they work with me.
I will post the updates for you.

ZZ06

WOW that was worse than my accident a few years ago. Mine broke right at the push rod and grinded the top of the rod worse than a crack ***** on meth giving ****

ChucksZ06

Hard to beat the oem rockers it seems. I know many shops have gotten away from anything other than t&d and jessel.

zeevette

I've had my Harland Sharp RR's for about 5 years, and no problems. For some reason I've never heard of these breaking in two like the YTs, but maybe that's because aren't used that much? Good news is, looks like no major damage.

CTD

Can you post up a photo of the valve tip were the roller contacts it? I would like to see the wipe pattern.

When you set up the valve train did you check the wipe pattern & then check the push rod length?

1 C6 2NV

You hit the nail on the head. This is the most common cause of vavletrain failure. The good news for the OP is YT will sell individual sets.

vettenuts

This set appears to fall into the window that Jim from YT indicated in the post where he explained some sets had a manufacturing issue. I would contact him directly.

Mr. Jones

The car is still in Va. I am in NJ now.
I can't post a valve tip pic. But I can assure you that I did
set up the sweep area of the rocker to valve tip.
I marked the tip with a black sharpie and with a test spring
I rotated the rocker and measured (dial indicator) at the valve the same lift as the cam was spec'ed. The supplied spacer provided the best pattern (very narrow and centered).
Pushrods were done with the heads assembled, a test spring and dial indicator.
The valve train had been very quiet until the failure.

Yes the timing was right for the rocker to be part of the bad batch.
I kept the box and order documents because I had read about the company getting new machinery and not having something setup correctly. Some issue with QC not picking it up a bad dimension.

I thought I was safe after all this time. I am glade I was only about 35 miles from my destination. My son was following in an other car. At least I had a way home.

I have contacted YT by their e-mail site.
I should call them tonight, maybe 9.00pm?

vettenuts

Excellent

bracketshark

I've got a brand new set of these waiting to be installed, should I expect this problem down the road? I bought them for reliability purposes not all out high performance. Thanks

bracketshark

Thanks.

CTD

Done....Awesome!

My Yella Terra's are on engine #2 soon to be cam #3

Mr. Jones

Rob

Thanks for the offer. Marshall just called and offered his trailer.
I should be able to install the replacements in Va. and drive it home.
Hopefully everything else is in good shape.

Frank

tblu92

I've been using YT's for years--Your'sr are the older design thick "heavy duty" ones--Since then YT has come out with the "Ultra Light Series "
The older ones worked fine--BUT only up to apprx 6000 RPM's--they were just too heavy and created some harmoics above that RPM
The new Ultralights are much lighter and can be run up to 7000 RPM
Make sure you get the Ultralights and to be safe check your valvetrain geometry and valve spring closed pressure while you have things apart

paint it black vette

i have yt's and have crossed the line at 132 mph in 3rd in a a-4 with 3.73 gears. well over 6000rpms. car shifts gears around 6400rpm. definately have the ultra lights

Mr. Jones

I spoke with Jim from Yella Terra.
Everything is in order to replace the rockers.
Great dealing with a no-bull company.
Thanks Jim

Mr. Jones

the only YT rockers with problems were manufactured around 2/2009.
I am not aware of any other problems. The date listed is my guess.

Many of the problems you see with rockers are due to bad setups.
I have seen people with bad valve height, non consistant valve height (one valve stem higher that the other).
bad pushrod lengths

allngn_c5

Hey Jim looks like you stepped up and saved another customer. Good job bro. To the OP I wanted to post what an easy task it is to get in touch with Jim at Yella Terra. I had a couple issues from OLD BATCH rr's and Jim was more then happy to work with me. Jim even offered to replace them before I could ask. Great JOB JIM !!!

Since the removal of the old ones I have had ZERO issues. A little back story on the issue as I was leaving for Georgia to visit Ron Mowen owner of Vengeance Racing and have some stuff done to the car while on my IRON MAN vacation (don't ask) everything was fine leaving Michigan but at the Ohio / Kentucky border the car went from smooth as silk cruise set at 75 to blahhhh. I said Oh **** I know that has to be a RR. Now with 475 miles to go I said F it and pushed forward without issue. After arriving at Vengeance Racing the valve covers were removed and one RR had partially broke. Car ran but under minimum load. No acceleration at all and keep the RPMs down.

After all was inspected no damage was found !! All scheduled stuff to do was done and I was on my happy way.

Gotta say a huge thanks to Jim at Yella Terra for spending to extra bucks to get them to Vengeance on time and thanks to Ron for doing excellent work as usual and getting me out on time and under budget.

You can count on Yella Terra (Jim Petrakis) and Vengeance Racing to get the job done every time.

Mr. Jones

update
I put the new rockers (16) in and no additional problems.
Car started and ran the same as before.
465 mile ride home yesterday with no issues and the same mileage as before.

Gray Ghost GS

I've been running the same set of Yella Terra Ultralite Roller Rocker Shaft Mount 1.7 since July 2007 on my LS6 383 and now my LS2 403 for the past several years on the road courses and daily driving with no issues (.612 to .624 lift cams), but am confident that if I ever experienced such a failure, they would provide the same outstanding customer service. Jim, I'm very happy with your product!