pedistal rocker HELP!!!!!!!!!!!058 r u there???

[460Waikiki]

Hello, you guys seem to be a pretty knowledgeable on ford Engines. I have a 460 ford with d3ve a2a heads,pedestal rockers,trw pistons , steel stamped rockers, hydraulic lifters an unkown aftermarket cam,
Well let me tell you my story I was out after I just put new gaskets in a used motor 40hrs or so. and I was driving boat for about 5 min around 4000rpm and bam! Motor started back firing threw carbÂ…oil pressure lost ectÂ…when I got pulled out of water I began to remove valve covers 4 cylinders with the rockers completely loose. And one of them the push rod shot threw the rocker! So pulled the intake and noticed 2 lifters shot out and fell apart the parts remaind in the valley luckly. Well I learned the hard way, I belive tried to adjust the rockers on a non adjustable valve train??all the parts ran perfect in boat prior gasket swap I had ! a head to block water leak befor and I figured why not change gaskets! Well I know I shouldnÂ’t do this but I am going to get some new lifters and pushrods and I had a spare rocker I cant afford to get a cam kit due to budget for this holiday weekend but I just want it to hold me over for this weekend. Do you think it will work??also since I donÂ’t know the cam specs I have some manuals that say to do the rocker arms bring the engine to TDC and adjust so and so. Then rotate 180* and adjust so and so Â…..and so on. Will this method work for this cam???? By the way the engine did not have any rocker spacers.and has stock length pushrods 8.550 5/16 .080 If you can help me out with any advise or suggestions I would really appreciate it thanks

[058]

460Waikiki, There may be a problem with your rocker geometry. I have to assume the rockers were properly torqued when you reassembled the engine so geometry is all thats left. A quick and dirty geometry check is to place a piece of paper between the valve stem and rocker and roll the engine over by hand so the valve cycles once, if the paper tears or shreds there is a problem with geometry, if it just flattens with no tearing the geometry is probablly ok. Another check is to see where the rocker contact is on the valve at half lift. If the rocker contact is just past the middle of the valve stem then it should be good. Watch closely the rocker sweep across the valve stem as you turn the engine over to see where the rocker contacts from zero lift to full lift. All the things that can effect geometry is valve jobs [sinking the valve], wrong pushrods, head/block milling, wrong head gasket thickness, wrong lifters, reground cams, wrong rockers and rocker stud pedistal machined incorrectly. One thing I would check too is pushrod length as 460s have a couple of different length pushrods to accomodate different block deck heights and different heads. Early 460s have one length and late 460s have another length. I can't offhand remember what the pushrod lengths are but its enough to cause problems. Hope this helps.

[460Waikiki]

actually i feel stupid because they werent torqued to specs i
adjusted them like a chevy engine with the 460 firing order.
so i think that is why they lossend up. what do you think about the lifter and rod question. also te adjustment method i said.
i will try the peice of paper too once i get rods and lifter this afternoon. thanks

[Blown 472]

Correct me if I am wrong, pedistal mounts dont have any adjustment in them, you tighten them after they bottom out on the head.
You can set the lifter preload with shims, but other than that it is bolt down dealio.

[460Waikiki]

thanks for your help guys i put in all new lifter and rockers i
titend them down like ford says. this time the dont look collapsed
they have some good bleed down left. i tried the paper check all looks good hopfully it will work.
Ill fire it up tommorrow after i bolt the intake thanks again