Hello to all. My name is Rich and I have a 93 excel that has only 24,000 miles and the car as you can guess is like new. Now, Late last year my daughter was drining it when suddenly it began to shake and knock and shut off. It would still start but would shake and knock wildly. Anyway I had it towed to my local mechanic and found that one of the rocker arm shafts had broken. He said it was common with these engines and that they are considered thrugh away motors. So finally He replaced both shafts and the car ran fine although a little noisy from my guess an inproper valve lash adjustment. I say inproper because just a few weeks later the car broke down again the same way as the first and so I decided to have a go at it myself. I took of the valve cover and what do I see, The rocker shaft for the exhaust side is broken in half. I would like to salvage this little car because of the milage and when it is running it is really great on gas and is good and tight just like a new car. when I took the shaft off I di notice that the shaft he replaced on the intake side seems to have been put in backwards because the bolt holes are off center and the valve adjusting screws are not centered on the valve stems. MY question is , Could this idiot have cased this to happen a second time or is this a problem with these motors?.....................Rich

Maybe she didnt like your daughter :P My girl has 'died' on other drivers since I brought her but when it comes to me, she works like a charm.

Onto the fact of this mechanic. It is possible that he did foul up when he was fixing the motor. There are some mechanics that havent seen a Hyundai motors before or even tried to fix one either. Are you sure this guy knows about Hyundai motors?

Hello the rocker arms break on alot of hyundai excels..this is a common problem, especially on the back or rear rocker when facing the valve cocer from the front of car.
The bolts have to be torqued to around 19 foot pounds if i recall, then you MUSt adjust the valves.
Sounds like this guy did not put in a new rocker arm shaft, but just reversed it..the reason I say this is because someone did the same thing to mine..it is a faster fix from them so they use the same old broken part, just reverse it.
I would tlk to the mechanic and tell him to replace fro free if that was the case.
good luck

Same thing happened to my 1992 Hyundai, I found a replacement shaft off an old Mitshubishi at the wreckers (cheap as chips at about NZ $8) when refitting I would bring down the torque slowly on each bolt for example start at 5ft pounds and slowly increase to get the correct torque rather than go in at 20 ft pound first off, I need to reset the tappets, I have just been using it for short trips and they are great on gas and very quick as well.

My shaft was broken at one end and I did not know what had happened until I took off the rocker cover (Exhaust Shaft)