Help: push rod bent. are these rockers on backwards?

[smos001]

Help,
Just bent two push rods on # 6. 1970 383 stock except for headers and 284/484 purple mopar cam. Its in a challenger RT vert.  Was not even revving it. Just driving down the road. oil pressure held.
I took off the valve cover and I noticed that maybe the rocker arms are not on the correct side? the LH and RH look like they are swapped? can some one confirm from the picture that they are on right?

Also, the engine has about 200 miles since rebuilt  and runs fine (before the incident). It had been sitting for about a year, but I drove it for about 50-75 miles this past few weeks or so and no issues.

Both push rods are bent, so my guess is one bent and the other got loose and jumped and got crushed somehow. Doubt that both hit something? The car ran after the push rods failed. I shut it down after I heard the loud thumping.  also in the past, It did backfired through the carb on hot starts occasionally.

Any thoughts on how to proceed? pull head, pull cam? timing? just put new push rods and hydraulic tappets?
Compression test?

Any Ideas on why the push rods bent?
Thanks,

[moparmaniac59]

I could be wrong, but from the picture it looks like the left & right rockers are swapped. This could cause binding and the problems that you have encountered. The raised buttons (where the pushrods go) on the rocker should be closest to each other on the inside of the rocker pairs. In other words, the buttons are not visually centered in the rocker. So the area with the greatest space between the center of the button to the outside edge of the rocker should be positioned so that the larger space is on the outside edge of each pair of rockers. Hope this helps! 


                                                                         Matt B.

[smos001]

What damage to the engine would the rockers in backwards do? would their be an oiling issue? What components should be checked?
Thanks

[moparmaniac59]

It would effect the geometry of the valvetrain, cause the pushrods to bind, but not necessarily cause an oiling issue. And as in your case, possibly enough binding to cause them to bend. I would pull the head where the pushrods were bent and make sure the valves are Ok and didn't make contact with the piston. If the piston looks alright, I would remove ALL the pushrods, make sure they are not bent, reorient the rockers and reassemble. If I forgot anything, I'm sure someone else will chime in. Maybe Chryco will have some more detailed info!! Hope it's just a matter of replacing a head gasket and two pushrods! 


                                                                              Matt B.

[MOPAR FANATIC]

  Looks like they are on backwards to me,your referring to the two rocker arms above the spark plug correct?if you look at he center of the rocker arm,ones offset oneway and the other the otherway,what i mean is the arm is not centered on top of the valve's,causing them to bind and bend just as stated above.i would try swapping them back,put in two new pushrods and see where your at.buudy of mine had the samee problem with his roadrunner 383 back in the eighties,but i can't recall what the problem was right now. 

[acudadude]

Hi you could try a Bore Scope Inspection Camera to ck valves and piston???

[moparmaniac59]

Just something I thought about. If you didn't rebuild the motor, I'd sure as heck be taking the car/motor to the engine builder and hold him responsible for the damage and would certainly expect him to make the repairs at his cost since it's only had 200 miles on it as it wasn't properly rebuilt!  AND I'd find another engine builder for any future projects!! 


                                                                          Matt B.

[72cudamaan]

Put the rockers on correctly and do a compression test. i can't see a reason to take the heads off before
performing any diagnostics ie compression test. I would definitely remove the pushrods and roll them on a piece of
glass to make sure they are straight before re-installing them.

[smos001]

Thanks,
The engine builder was the previous owner. The guy has been building MOPARs for many years. He restores them on the side. Has a good reputation. Nice people.

 I bought the car a few months ago. Drove it maybe 50 miles. It happens...not going to cry too long...

It is at a classic car shop now. I usually do my own work to a point. But, my one car garage is too small for what quite possibly could be a big tear down. So I thought I drop it off at the classic car shop. I assume that a trained mechanic may have more experience with this analysis of what happened and I could use all the good advice I can get.  After I saw the rockers, I knew right away something looked odd. I had re-built a 383 in the past in my parents garage many years ago.

So now is the point where I have to decide on what to do to get her back on the road and how much to pull a part to make sure she keeps running. The shop will be calling tomorrow. So I am researching all my alternatives to have an educated discussion.
The possible and unknown damage to the cam scares me as well as the side loads on the valves from the wrong directions the rockers were pressing. Not to mention any piston to valve contact.
Thanks for all the help,

[Chryco Psycho]

I would get the car back & fix it yourself  , swap the rockers , replace the bad pushrods probably at least 1/2 will be bad , if oil pressure dropped the lifter popped out you can reinstall it will a long magnet & screwdriver , you can clearly see the tip of the rocker is not centered over the valve tip & it cannot because the pushrod is rubbing on the side of the intake port .

[MOPAR FANATIC]

I would get the car back & fix it yourself  , swap the rockers , replace the bad pushrods probably at least 1/2 will be bad , if oil pressure dropped the lifter popped out you can reinstall it will a long magnet & screwdriver , you can clearly see the tip of the rocker is not centered over the valve tip & it cannot because the pushrod is rubbing on the side of the intake port .

'tip of the rocker is not centered"= dead on neil. exactly first thing i noticed yesterday. 

[HP_Cuda]

Not hard to fix as Neil already pointed out.

Might as well check the other side out as well just to be sure if you will be ordering pushrods.

 

[smos001]

Thanks to all for the advice.
I just got her back together. I put in a couple of new rockers and a full set of push rods. Did a Leak down test to see if anything else got damaged. The leak down test showed no damage.  At least no hole in the piston etc.
Thanks again,

[Chryco Psycho]