After a new cam,lifters,pushrods (standard length), reworked heads, rocker shafts, I have an annoying valve train clatter (in my 390). I tried narrowing it down today, with the valve covers off. I talked to my local hot rod shop guru about tracing it down and he suggested that if I was willing to spend a hair under 4 hundred dollars, I could purchase a Crane kit to retrofit adjustable rockers. I guess you get adjustable rockers and special pushrods. He says that if that doesn't solve my problem then I need to think about a new shortblock. He says that the oil pressure is read before any bearings so it isn't really a good indication of bearing condition and that the FE's don't have a lot of oil pressure at the top end at an idle. I believe I have some oil blowby on cylinder #8 anyway so I may be headed toward needing a new shortblock anyway. I have to put an engine in my other nicer truck and maybe putting a fresh 390 in it would be the way to go. All the top end of the 390 is new at this point. Has anybody done this Crane retrofit? I'd be willing to spend the dollars to have a convenient way to preload the pushrods. The other way seems like a nightmare.

 

BBT,
I'm sure you're aware of this but if not...

According to my Chilton's, the only way to get rid of lifter noise is to use varying lentgh pushrods to take up the slack.