Rocker arm off the cam/valve spring???

OK..I need your thoughts on this one.
I have a replacement 2200 engine that I am going to put in my Mazda. This engine had been in a wrecked truck. Something in the wreck aparently pushed back and bent the distributor, broke 3 teeth teeth on the drive gear and the cam gear as well. So I ordered a new cam and had another distributor. Here is where it gets interesting..
I pulled the valve cover and instantly noticed that one of the rocker arms had its spring collapsed towards the front of the engine and was against the side of the ajacent rocker arm. The tip of the rocker wasn't on the center of the valve spring and, it was only about a third of the way on the cam lobe. I gave it a slight tap with a hammer and it popped back into place.
Is it possible that this happened due to the wreck? There is only a slight nick on the top of the valve spring retainer where the rocker arm had contact with the top of the spring (on it's edge, not where the tip was at) so I don't really think that it had been ran long with the arm not in its proper place. The rocker arm spring seems to have the same tension as the rest. I can take some pics if needed. This was only on one rocker arm, Any thoughts?

this shouldnt seem any harm to me. the rockers slide back and forth with springs. if youve ever had one apart you would understand what im talking about. when the cam and distributor hit it prolly jarred it a little bit. while you have it apart you should do the solid lifter converstion using my how-to in the tech section.





-justin

I went out to take some pics and I pushed it back over to where I found it...While I was taking them the rocker snapped back on its own. So, I may be making a mountain from a mole hill here. Anyways, here are the pics. My apologies for the crappy photos.

If you have to force it over(to knock it out of place) then you should be ok. they will move anyway when you pull the lifters to change the cam.

There is a slight amount of play in the rocker arm placement as pont & justin have said, but with the lick being hard enough to bend the dizzy & break the teeth on it & cam gears, it may have been hard enough to throw the lateral movement of the cam out of spec, which might be adding to the issue with the rocker arm moving on you...

The new cam you have probably isn't matched to that rockerarm assembly, & with the chance that the lateral movement of the cam being out of spec, it wouldn't be a bad idea
to see if the cam moves when you initially install it, to do this, set the cam in position, set the rocker arm assembly on the cam, and hand tighten (snug tight with a wrench, but not to the rated torque specs) the bolts in the appropriate sequence. If the cam moves (rotates) while your are tightening the assembly down you will need to carry it & have the surfaces where the cam rest line honed to match the runout of the cam. If this isn't done, you will have excessive wear on the mains & lobes of the cam, and run the possibility of too much or too little valve spring compression which can have there own set of adverse affects.

Thanks for all the replies..Once I get it in there I will see if the new cam has issues with the old rockers and go from there.
Once again, thanks!

I got everything back together tonight and everything seems to check out OK. Must have just been a freak thing going on with the rocker arm and the rocker arm at the time of impact.