Well turns out I'm not so lucky and the motor will have to be pulled. By pure chance the next cylinder I did was #3. It was the closest one to TDC so I had at it. Pulled the rockers and found this
and then after I
I look closely at the rocker and saw this
So now I have to pull the motor and have a look at what's going on. I looked at the rest of the rockers and valve stem tips and they are perfect. No abnormalities at all. The offending rocker trunion and tip spins fine with no excessive travel/slop and doesn't feel like its grinding or anything. The pushrod is straight and true, the ends are not pitted or deformed in any way.
It appears as though the roller tip stopped spinning for whatever reason and started to just slide across the valve stem causing the wear, but that cause the top to stop spinning (if that's what did happen).
So now there are lots of choices to make and this car is wearing thin on my resolve. Everytime I turn around its doin this to me
and I'm not feeling the love anymore.
Any input on the cause of the wear is appreciated. I'm trying to understand what is going on. Could it be a sign of weak springs? valve float? Any ideas?
Just for kicks here's a shot of the spring that failed on #7 and started this whole decent into ****sville.
