I recently replaced the head gasket on my '82 F150 with a 302 / 120k miles. Upon tearing down the engine I found 1 pushrod was bent. I replaced it with a new one, had the heads machined, reassembled, and everything seemed fine. After about 100 miles the engine started ticking.
So far I have:
1) Changed the oil. It was due for an oil change so I tried out risoline.
2) Tried adding a little seafoam to see if that would quiet it.

I'm pretty green with the internals of the engine. I was thinking next of pulling the valve cover to see if the the pushrod I had replaced maybe got bent again and going from there.

Anyone have ideas on what direction I should go/suggestions?

Thanks!

 

Keep going and take a look. How long have you been running it with the rislone? It usually takes a week or or so of driving before it gets rid of it completely.

 

Had some time today before work to take a closer look. The tick was actually coming from the driver's side. Had a bent pushrod. Decided to take the passenger's side off to make sure everything was alright....

This might be a little confusing, but I'll do the best I can.

The rocker arm that had a bent push-rod when I first disassembled the engine had a lot of movement to it. It was torqued to spec. Ill call it rocker arm A. It's paired rocker arm Ill call rocker arm B. I took rocker arm A and rocker arm B off, switched them, and torqued to spec.
Rocker arm B had no play in rocker arm A's previous position. Rocker arm A still had a tiny bit of play in rocker arm B's previous position, but not nearly as much as it did before.
I'm thinking that rocker arm A is just worn and needs to be replaced?

After switching the rocker arms and replacing the push-rod the engine is running great. Smooth, quiet, and no noise.


I just put rislone in about 3 days, so not that long lol. I've read that it adds actual zinc and isn't a zinc substitute so I figured I'd give it a try.

 

Sounds like you found the problem. I would inspect the rocker and it's components very carefully. Unlike Chevy, Ford uses the rocker to guide and keep the pushrod straight. If there is something wrong and it lets the pushrod get ****-eyed it probably will get bent.

You should have the rockers that are bolted down with bolts correct? If you take it apart and look, you should have a machined flat area with a groove in the head casting, right where the bolt hole is located. The soft rocker "sled" has a protrusion that fits snugly down in this groove in the head, and when it's bolted down this should not move. And then the rocker slides back and forth on this soft sled. See if you can figure out what's worn.

 

Here's a picture from Autozone's site. They want about $10.00 for the setup below. You can see the rocker, the sled and the bolt. You can see the square on the sled, it's shown upside down. This square fits into the groove in the head and keeps the sled from turning.

 

Thanks Franklin. It does have a guide to keep the "sled" square straight. Although it's not machined into the head. I think it's called a rocker arm bridge? It goes over the rocker arm bolt holes on the head and has edges to keep the squares straight.
I think the square hole in the rocker is worn. I'll get it out and give it a closer look.

 

Hymn,
I had same issue with bent push rod.
Unfortunately it was a bit deeper the cam lobe had rounded off causing greater clearance at push rod to rocker.
Then of course push rod goes out of alignment and bingo bent rod.