225 Oiling

I am currently working on a 225 motor and while doing so I have discovered that it only has oil flow to the rocker assemblies from the front ports of the heads. The flow from the front ports is very healthy and will shoot oil out in about a 2 foot arc. Here is a picture of it while cranking it over,if you look closely you can see the oil squirting out.

I dont have any flow from the rear ports on the heads. I used a length of copper wire and probed the rear ports and the wire goes in about 3 1/2" and hits a solid surface. I compared that measurement to the approximate height of the port from the bottom of the head.

It seems as though the original head gasket doesnt allow for the rear ports to have an oil pathway. I reviewed some info the I had from a Fel-Pro heqad gasket set and it implys that there have been a few differqant head gasket designs over the years.

The rocker assemblies do not have any excessive wear and there seems to have been adequate oiling from just the front ports in this motors life.

Is this normal ? Could it be that the 225 design at one time only used the front ports to oil the entire rocker assemblies ? As a note this motor has about 35 lbs oil pressure when running at hot idle and it has about 30 lbs pressure just cranking it over while I made this observation.

 

What you see on the spurt of oil is what you should see. Only on the two front ports for the rocker shaft oiling. As you have found out, there is no drilled port in the block for the rear. This has to be as the block oil travels from the front to the rear it encounters metered journals which encourages oil pressure. You will also note a small hole in the rocker arm where the push-rod seats. Oil from the rocker shaft travels through the rocker arm to the push-rod seat.

 

Thanks for the info Walt !
Oz.