This afternoon I colored the cup with a Sharpie and spun an adjuster in it. You can clearly see that the ball only hits on the top edge of the cup and doesn't come close to the bottom. Elgin claims their prints say the cup is .370 but I can tell you the parts aren't..

I finally got the camera to work LOL.
Top is the one that broke
Middle is the OEM set I found in the unmarked box
Bottom set is unknown to me, I only remember taking them out of a Y years ago. Maybe some one will recognize them..

I get sticker shock with almost anything I buy these days. An expensive lesson learned, I won't buy off the self pushrods if I ever need them again. I need to do a better job of labeling what I have. I will trash the pushrods and take the loss rather then find myself broken down miles from home. The Yblock is my daily driver and sees a lot of long distance trips. Long distance for me is usually about 300 miles round trip to visit the gran kids. I've done a few further then that with the last engine and plan on doing many more with this engine.

I didn't realize pushrods were so expensive now.

I got a set of custom Smith Brothers pushrods a couple years ago that might have been $120, with shipping and they make a much better pushrod, in my opinion.
The good thing about custom ordering is that you can measure the adjuster screw ball and original pushrod ball (or known to fit correctly replacement) and specify the pushrods for that.  Then they fit, no matter what has been done to the engine - but you still need to check.

Smith Brothers are not strangers to Y-Blocks so it is possible they know the stock lengths.  If not, maybe you can send one for reference.  What I did to measure, since I don't have a 12" caliper, is use a combination square set at about 5 1/2" and measured that with a 6" caliper for the exact dimension.  I then put an 8mm (.315") ball bearing in the cup of the pushrod, set those on the combination square and measured the length that the pushrod extends beyond the square.  So the effective length is the length beyond + about 5.500" - .315".  It's a tricky setup but with some practice, it is reasonably repeatable and much cheaper than a 12" caliper.


Lawrenceville, GA

Yep, it was quite a few years ago, paid a lot of money (for me) at the time. I've had the pleasure of going through everything and spending both the money and the time making it right.

I am aware of that possible problem. I use OEM adjusters that are .360 and with the OEM pushrods they worked fine on the previous engine. I reused the same rockers and pushrods on my new engine and it ran fine for the first few hundred miles. I only bought the new pushrods because I now have 2 Yblock motors and only had one set of pushrods and I liked the idea of tubular vs solid. Good news is I reinstalled the OEM pushrods and between a long drive on Sat, a few short ones on Mon and Tues it's run perfectly for 400 miles. Other good news is I found another set of OEM and another set of unidentified in an unmarked box that I totally forgot I had. I'm at that age I shouldn't rely on memory :-)

Not much of an engine builder full stop! Anyone that doesn't check to see if a bolt is bottoming or interfering with something shouldn't be building engines.

Based on a recent "Random Thoughts" blurb by John Mummert in Y-Block Magazine, (issue #137, 2016) what may be happening here is a compatibilty problem, not necessarily bad Elgin or other stock spec pushrods. Original or stock replacement pushrods & some aftemarket adjusting screws both appear to have 3/8" adjusters. This is not actually the case.  The ball & cup needs about .010 - .015" oiling clearance. Stock Ford adjuster balls are about .360" & the cup is about .375".  Some aftermarket pushrods have a .390"  cup & the adjuster ball end is .375".. If the aftermarket ball adjusters are used with original spec pushrods, there is no clearance for proper oiling, soon resulting in failure!  Plus he says there are poor quality aftermarket adjuster screws out there also..   ..( Hopefully I've explained the problem correctly)  Also note that he explains some other important miscues that can happen related to our favorite engine & related parts. This issue is worth ordering from the editor Bruce Young, just for this article alone..     


Paul

This maybe the problem, further investigation will be needed when I can get a break. I'm using the shorter rod with my G heads and 1.54 rockers. Maybe the longer ones did have an issue?

WOW! your engine builder doesn't seem to know much about Yblocks