The rocker arms on my 22re are hitting the valve cover. In order to stop this from happening, I loosen the valve cover nuts. The problem is, If I tighten the nuts tight enough to hold the valve cover on, and not have air escape from the grommets between the valve cover and the nuts, the rocker arms will hit the valve cover. If I loosen the nuts to where they dont hit, the nuts are easily removed by hand and air will leak through the grommets.

Is there a way to get them to stop hitting the valve cover besides loosening the nuts? How bad is it on the engine to have the rockers hit the valve cover?

 

bad, negative ghostrider

check your vc gasket it might have folded over or fell out of that groove causing it not to tighten down properly, and there are two different valve covers for 22r and 22re's i dont know if there is a difference in clearence though so if you have the right one for your truck then you are good should be the more squared off one.

 

sounds like your grommets are shot. When you tighten the nuts its just squeezing down too far. I would recommend getting new grommets.

 

I'd suggest getting a new gasket set to include the 4 rubber grommets and those 2 half mooned ones on the front and rear of the head. Mine were pretty mooshed compared to new ones when I replaced them.

 

X2......new set. Hopefully you didn't warp the valve cover.???