Engine tick? Extra loud? Check your pushrods....
 

I pulled off the valve cover and found a loose rocker. Unbolted the retainer and pulled this bad boy out. Had another set from an old motor. Pulled all out,mc leaned them, and reinstalled the straightest set I could make with mine. Some were slightly bent.

everythimg back together and seems to be okay. No major damage to speak of. Still has the slight rough idle and poor performance though. Those were around prior to this. Ticking developed and I immediately started the investigation. After this all the rockers got the needed oil.

If you have a tick, fix it before you really mess something up. Yank off the valve cover and wiggle your rocker arms. They shouldn't move.

This video shows what you don't want to see. If you see a loose rocker like this, could be a pushrod or a collapsed lifter. For the lifter, you will have to pull the head.

If you're still not sure. Start the motor with the cover off. Watch the rockers for even movement down the line. Also look in the rocker valleys. They should have oil and not be dry. Look at the defective one. Oil was not able to pass up through the pushrod. In this case, the lifter was okay. It was because of bent rod.

This is what it sounded like prior to removing the cover. It wasn't liking the bent pushrod.

Proper operation after rods were cleaned and reinstalled. Bent rod was kept as a memory, but, had no place in this motor. This was an easy job. Maybe to 45 minutes with soaking and cleaning the rods.

Good job posting. Thanks.


What do you think caused the push rod to bend?

Not a problem. I wanted to contribute something useful in lieu of alwaus asking for help. Hopefullu this helps someone down the line. I won't ever delete the videos so I hope they stay associated with the thread.

Now if I can only figure out why it happend. Only time will tell. I'm battling a rough idle at the moment. Have been for over a year now. I'm systematically ruling everything out. Reset the distributer since this happend. Hard start is gone but it still has a rough idle. I might be one tooth off. Going to redo the timing again tonight and see what happens.

Either way I'm not sure it's related. Something got stuck and bent it. It happened when it started very rough one day. I was giving throttle to keep it alive and it started ticking and clunking. I shut it down and pulled the valve cover after determining it came from the internals. I suspected a collapsed lifter. Found this instead.

Good videos. Thanks.