After cam break in

dartindanno said
Sorry about the long wait but it's hunting season and haven't had the time to check this out. Easy solution for a bonehead move on my part. Removed the valve covers and saw a pair of rockers not touching the valves and the push rods sunk in. I pulled the push rod and it was bent. Biggest mistake on my end was assembling the rocker assembly with the manifold on. The first assembly was done without the manifold and we had a tough time keeping the push rods centered on the lifters while tightening the rockers. Learning experience, cam and lifters are good since the engine wasn't run but it did cost me 2 new push rodsView attachment 1715624180

When the pushrod can “fall” out of the cup in the lifter, you have the wrong radius on the pushrod.

That should never happen. IDK when the change occurred, or how many lifters are coming with the 3/16 radius rather than the 5/32 but it’s been most everything I’ve seen lately.

And it got burned by it. Hard. I caught it when I was putting my junk together and I let it slide.

I pulled the rockers to make a change to the oiling system and 3 of the pushrods slid out of the seat. Since I don’t have a mile of P/V it bent 3 valves and nick’d 3 lifters, junking both.

Call Smith Brothers and they will send you a radius gauge if you don’t already have one.

Measure the radius of the seat and call and have them make you a set.

That’s much cheaper than letting it slide. BTDT