I went ahead and bought the Elgins, Didn't make 50 miles and one of the cups cracked and a chunk fell off. I had read in the past about this problem but figured by now they would have corrected it, NOPE! $125 down the drain, I trashed them and put the old solid ones back in..

You have to check everything.  Even the best manufacturers have issues sometimes.


Lawrenceville, GA

Were these Elgin PR-71S or PR-73S that broke? Not that it probably matters, just wondering. Am rebuilding the rocker assemblies and decided to replace the pushrods on GP, bought a set of PR-71S, Noticed the cup doesn't seem as deep as the OEM pushrod. Reading about the issues from years past I greased the adjuster ball on a new rocker arm to see if the fit was good, the contact patch between ball and socket looks good, but I dunno. Bummed about this.

Ted, these were the PR-73S and have a date on the box of 08-01-17. I looked at each one visually before I installed them. I have a feeling the radius in the cup is not right, I'll do a check on that this weekend. I'm just glad it broke on a short trip, this weekend I'll be doing a couple of hundred miles.
I saw your post on the truck forum about the springs, don't know a source for those..

Yep, the original locater springs on the rocker shaft would "probably" be OK but a couple of them are worn thin. Haven't looked at them real close though.

I'd figured the defective pushrod issue went bye bye, that was quite a few years ago.

I decided to go out and measure the cups. It looks like the cup is .350 and the ball is .360, that doesn't work.. I'm going to contact Elgin and see what they say.
The only reason I bought these was I have 2 Yblock engines now and only had one set of push rods, so I decided to put the new ones in this engine, good thing I did and ran the test run.

How are you measuring the cup? ID micrometer? Elgin doesn't supply that information either, near as I can tell.

Just with inside caliber. Now I'm worried about the lifter end. The Elgin ball is .360 and the stock ones are .310. I don't have a loose lifter to see how it fits, and I sure don't want to ruin the lifters..

It's confusing to me (not difficult ha ha) because there are so many different pushrods available. Mummert's webpage indicates the the "long" pushrods are used for early and late cylinder heads, although the stock rods I have aren't as long.

The slight differences in length won't matter insofar as far as spring bind &c, retainer and valveguide clearance etc, so long as we're talking about stock springs and camshaft, and 1.43 rockers correct? I'm just a simple guy trying to get through the day.

A caliper will not provide an accurate inside measurement for something that small.  It will indicate a slightly smaller dimension.  It is best to check using something like dye or grease to observe the contact pattern.  Usually, the cup will cover more than half of the ball.  If you can see that less than half is covered, then the cup is probably to small.

.360" is about right for the ball.  .310 is too small, probably incorrect pushrods.


Lawrenceville, GA