The engine has about 35,000 miles on a rebuilt 360 cid engine.
Today I pulled the engine to replace the slipping clutch and leaking intake manifold gasket.

Removed the valve cover and push rods assembly and notice about half of the push rods had worn a point on the tips of push rods were they meet the rocker arms. The rocker arms are also worn to a point like shape where they meet the push rods.

Inspect the heads and engine block and did not notice any metal shavings or metal dust at the low points on the engine. I was wondering if a set of rocker arms with shafts, push rods, and lifter would fix the engine or do I need to rebuild the engine?

What would cause the push rods to wear to a point?
What needs to be replaced to fix my engine?

Any suggestions, greatly appreciated.

Richard

 

Id guess some of the oiling holes in the rockershafts were blocked with gunk and those rockers didn't get oil. Check the shafts.

 

The rocker arms are worn and I thinking I will need to replace the whole rocker arm assembly.

I will check the oiling holes later today.

 

The shafts usually wear on FE's, that aspect is easily seen on inspection of the shafts. Rocker wear is a bit harder to spot without taking measurements

 

A couple of oil hole passages on shaft had some debris, looked like hardened oil build up. Some of the rocker arm shaft had some grooves and wear. The oil passages on the cylinder heads were clean and no visible signs of debri. I'm thinking maybe some bad oil was used on the engine. I will be removing the oil pan next week and inpecting the oil pump pickup screen and the bottom of pan for any debri. Oil pressure before the tear down seem normal. I will also be inspecting the main bearing. The rocker arms assembly and push rods does not look like it was replaced during the engine rebuild, I have no way of knowing what kind of rebuild was done, because I bought the truck about 5 months ago. I will be inpecting other engine parts as I start removing engine parts.
I have a 390 FE block sitting in the garage, I'm thinking if things start looking bad, I can rebuild the 390 with a few goodies.

 

Inside of oil pan and the pick up tube and screen had no debri. The 390 block turned out to be a 360. I have started to order engine parts for the rebuild of the older 360 block using the newer D2TE-A heads. The 360 with about 35,000 miles I plan on touching the engine up. One 360 engine has C8AE-H heads (from my research these are GT heads off a car and the exhaust bolt holes require GT manifolds). The only thing I spotted worn on the newer engine I pulled on the truck was the lifters bases were a bit worn and concaved, some push rods were worn to a point, rocker shaft had some scouring marks, and the rocker arms were worn to the shape of point on push rods. I have never seen these push rods were like they did, and what would cause them to wear like that?
The engine gaskets seem look like they had 50,000 miles. Will need to pull the main caps to inspect the crankshaft and main bearings later this week. will need to inspect other engine parts for wear on the newer block once on done rebuilding the older engine. I order a 390 crank with 390 rods. It will be some time before I get my 1976 F150 4x4 running again. Need to do some prep and engine work to the engine block before I send to the machine shop.

 

C8AE-H heads came in both bolt patterns. I've got a set in each. 360 & 390 share the same block. Difference was in crank, rods and pistons.(stroke)

 

I will verify the C8AE-H heads with my truck exhaust manifolds.
Turns out the engines are both 360 FE, I found a crankshaft and rods for a 390 and plan on conveting the older FE block into a 390 FE with some upgrades (crane cam, hyperautic pistons, double roller timing chain, new oil pump, new rocker arms, new water pump, balancing the engine, porting the heads, edelbrock carb and intake manifold). I plan on do some prep work to block and heads before I take them to the machine shop. I have a few buddies who fix up Ford engines and I will be seeking their advice along with this forum.

 

What kind of oil have you been using????

 

If the heads don't have the right bolt pattern they should have been cast with the bosses to drill and tap them.

G.

 

Back then, I had just bought the truck with that engine, the engine had a bad leak from the intake gasket. Not sure what engine oil the previous owner was using. I had changed the oil (firts oil change was Chevron Supreme 10w30) once when I first bought the truck, and just kept adding a quart at about 500 miles. When the time came to change the leaking intake gaskets, this is when I noticed the push rods.

This engine, cylinder (bores) have no ridge, and overall looked very clean. The previous owner mentioned, he had a machine shop do all the work.

I kept the orginal block in tact (for another future rebuild) and will go thru this engine in the future sometime. I used the original cylinder heads on another engine block and had everything rebuilt.

The cylinder heads on both had (D2TE & C8AE-H) the same exhaust bolt pattern.