Its been done before...
It probably would have been fine in his case, as I said, BUT really none of us want to be telling people to go weld their push rods to length ...not when a lot people couldnt weld two cubes of butter with a hot knife....and not when there are correctly made push rods you can buy new.
45+ yrs ago hot rodding wasn't an off the shelf hobby, keep that in mind everyone :)
