Bent Pushrods on a rebuilt 318
Was having issues with crankcase pressure even though I was running a breather and PCV with good vacuum. Started doing a leak-down test and noticed six of my pushrods were noticeably bent. A couple things to note:
-There's only 180 miles on the motor
-I'm not running a particularly big cam. (Comp XE262)
-I'm running all new everything that was matched to the cam. (springs/lifters, etc)
-There's no sign of any contact on the pistons and they have some decent reliefs (KB167s)
-Only six bent and they all bent about the same. 8 would've made more sense since I could blame the intake or exhaust side.
-Aside from seeping oil out of a few weakpoints the motor seemed to be running strong.
Here's a vid I happen to take before really digging in.
I'm about to tear off the intake and take a look at the condition of the cam and lifters but I wanted to get a few ideas about what happened here. The only theory I have currently is that my pushrods were a hair short and managed to bounce out of the groove in the rockers. That would certainly cause them to bind and bend. Everything else I think of would've effected more or less than 6 rockers or done some damage to my valves/pistons but the leakdown test came back good. 2 of the cylinders got poor readings but were good when I gave the engine another rotation so the rings may not be full seated in them yet but the valves are good.
Was having issues with crankcase pressure even though I was running a breather and PCV with good vacuum. Started doing a leak-down test and noticed six of my pushrods were noticeably bent. A couple things to note:
-There's only 180 miles on the motor
-I'm not running a particularly big cam. (Comp XE262)
-I'm running all new everything that was matched to the cam. (springs/lifters, etc)
-There's no sign of any contact on the pistons and they have some decent reliefs (KB167s)
-Only six bent and they all bent about the same. 8 would've made more sense since I could blame the intake or exhaust side.
-Aside from seeping oil out of a few weakpoints the motor seemed to be running strong.
Here's a vid I happen to take before really digging in.
I'm about to tear off the intake and take a look at the condition of the cam and lifters but I wanted to get a few ideas about what happened here. The only theory I have currently is that my pushrods were a hair short and managed to bounce out of the groove in the rockers. That would certainly cause them to bind and bend. Everything else I think of would've effected more or less than 6 rockers or done some damage to my valves/pistons but the leakdown test came back good. 2 of the cylinders got poor readings but were good when I gave the engine another rotation so the rings may not be full seated in them yet but the valves are good.
