Did you retain the stock cam and original lifters? I ask because on my 66 361 the original lifters have a smaller cup in them. The stock pushrods are actually tapered at the bottom. If you use late model pushrods they may not fully seat.
Look what happened to SP today. :-(
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Barry Woodyard
426 Woody
I have a 540 Stroker Motor. Had 10 miles on it and lifters started rattling. Pulled the Valve covers and the end had broken off of one of the pushrods. I had the engine proffessonaly built. Got a new set of pushrods and installed them and 5 miles later same thing happened. Engine has a Hydraulic Roller Comp Cam with their push rods. I put Diamond pushrods in and have had no problem
RGAZ
Well-Known Member
Oh yeah, look at that! I bet the ball is probably bigger than the cup. If so, and they are all the same as this one, this will not be the only one to frag. They will not last long.
RGAZ
SassyPants
Well-Known Member
Good Questions. New Cam, New Lifters, New Rockers. All supposed to match. We will pull the rockers to be certain all is well with all of them and see what is next. Best, B.
SassyPants
Well-Known Member
R, thanks for the Coaching. FORTUNATELY, it popped in two pieces both of which fit perfectly to complete the cup. To be certain, we will drop the oil and have a look at the Oil Plug that is magnetic. Best, B.
SassyPants
Well-Known Member
RGAZ, these are meant to be a "Matched Set". Checked that again with the Proform to be certain we have the correct push rods. They say, we do given the Rockers we have. So, unless one was incorrectly machined, they ought to fit. A new set of Push Rods are on the way, supplied by Proform, and we will pull all of the rockers and the old push rods to inspect under magnifying glass the balls AND the other push rods. We will know a lot more when we get the valve train out. Fingers Crossed. Guys, I really appreciate your coaching. I will keep you abreast of the progress. Important to note, Proform did/is sending new push rods on their dime. So, they are trying to make it right. Fingers crossed. Best, Brian
SassyPants
Well-Known Member
440, Thanks for your note. We agree. When one looks at it very closely, it frankly looks like this one "was over headed" and rather crystalized. I have a buddy that is an Engineer for Cummins, engine build side of the business. His observation is that this one (or likely more) were overheated when they were "heat treated". That made it brittle. What others have suggested about the Ball being too big, we will see. When we did get the Rockers and the push rods, the engine builder "de burred" all of the parts before we assembled them on the engine. So, we have had a look at them once. We will bring out the Magnifying Glass now for each rocker and each push rod. In short, we will know a lot more when we get them all out. The engine builder has done some high dollar engines. His stable mate does the Long Distance racing, 6 or 12 hours. He is also a good buddy and knows me and our situation well. His first engine build just out of high school was a 383 in a 69 or 70 Road Runner. So, we will see what the parts tell us. best to you all, Brian
sarjag
Member
Best advise I can give is "stay away from proform parts" Had a small block chevy with proform rockers and the roller guide washers "sawed" into the rocker bodies. Found the mess before a disaster happened. Pic attached. Never again Proform!
SassyPants
Well-Known Member
Update to the Push Rod Issue. Last week, I got from ProForm a new set of Push Rods. Thank you Denny for your and your team's quick action. Here is a pic of them upon arrival.
SassyPants
Well-Known Member
Then yesterday, I removed the driver's side valve cover and found this. Broken one Number 2.
SassyPants
Well-Known Member
Fortunately, I found the broken piece and got it out of the top of the head. Will know tomorrow as Dr. K the engine builder will be here to take out the valve train and then we will look at the rest of the set up for obvious errors and inconsistencies. We will put each rocker under light and magnifying glass to be certain all is well. Assuming all is well with the Rockers, it will be in with the new push rods and back in with the rockers hoping we just got a bad batch the last time. Again, fingers crossed. Here is the broken piece I fetched out. Again, looks like too much heat on the cup, we think. Best to you all, Brian
SassyPants
Well-Known Member
Update, Sunday. Well folks, here is what we found when we pulled the Rockers and the Push Rods. 1. Two of the Push Rods were broken as was described below. Fortunately no others were broken and none were even cracked when put under the mag glass. 2. As "Coached" above (THANK YOU RemCharger and RGAZ), we measured the Balls on the Rocker Studs. Guess What?? 8 were over sized. We took those eight studs back to the shop and the engine builder Machined them down to size. I will get you pics of what we found. Soooo, the newly Machined Studs are back in the rockers and we will put it back together next w/end. Here are some pics with explanations. Again, THANK YOU to you all for your Great Coaching. Allowed us to Cut to the Chase on sorting out the issues. I am delighted that the engine builder did not just "replace parts" instead looked for the cause problem. Best to you all, Brian
SassyPants
Well-Known Member
So, please understand that I am NOT an engineer. So, here are some of my observations and what we found. The inside diameter of the "Cups" of the New Pushrods are 0.308 which is good news. Of the new 16 we got, they all were right at that spec. Here is a shot of the rockers out of the car. We measured all of the Balls on the Rocker Studs. you can see an X on the sides of the rockers that were out of spec ALL to the Too Big side (RemCharger and RGAZ a shout out). Next pic will be what they measured. Remember, the inside of the Cups of the Pushrods are 0.308. More in a bit.
SassyPants
Well-Known Member
Here are the measurements for 8 of the Balls on the Studs. One was also out of round. Sooo, as suggested above, with these well out of spec, they were not seating correctly and were obviously applying pressure on the top of the cup. So, what to do??
HEMI-ITIS
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Sum-ting-wong,,,,,did you check the geometry when you installed new pushrods? Did you measure the PR length before ordering them??
SassyPants
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Dr. K, the engine builder machined them down to size (0.305) and they are ready to re install. So, what could have happened? The engine builder has a set of Ford FE Comp Cam Rockers at the shop. The balls on the studs for the Comp Cam FE are .... 0.328. Hmmmm. So, anyway, we now have 16 push rods that are 0.308 on the inside of the cups and we now have the balls on the Rocker Studs at 0.305. In short, they will seat down in the cup. What did I miss? Best, Brian
SassyPants
Well-Known Member
Hemi, we have not yet installed the rockers. We did measure the push rods and all are correct length. We did measure the PR length before ordering. We will see how they fit when installed. Now we know more of what to look for. Thanks, B.
So dumb question from my end: Are the balls on the studs hardened? Can they safely be machined down and still work? (In some cases, only the surface of the material is hardened, like my stock rockers.)
It's not a dumb question Hawk it's the right question.
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