I am working on a basket-case 55 TBird. It came to me in parts and I am slowly trying to resurrect it. It has a 292 YBlock that was sent out to the machine shop, along with the cylinder heads, crank, rods, heads, rockers and valves. The block and heads were cleaned up and pressure tested. The block bored 60 over with new pistons and rings. Heads redone with new valves, springs and rocker shafts. I got it back and put it all together using the YBlock rebuild book and of course, the various YBlock internet sites. Got it installed in the frame and wanted to get it started before I started hanging everything else on it. It seemed a little hard to turn over by hand, but I attributed that to the new rings and compression. When I installed the starter and tried, is seemed to turn over slowly without the plugs in it and very slowly with the plugs in it. I thought it may be the 60 year old starter, so I rebuilt that...no joy. So I bought a new 12volt starter and installed that. A little better, but not spinning it fast enough to start it. So I went looking for other issues. I have consistently pressurized the oil system and have oil up to the heads. Some folks I talked to have suggested the rings might be too tight, but according to my notes, they are within spec. Others have suggested the pushrods being adjusted too tight. So, I pulled the valve covers and pulled all the pushrods. They all look good, but I have 2 different types of pushrods. One is skinny and solid and the other is fat and tubular..
I think one is old style and one is new... But that got me thinking and I remembered that the block is not original to the car. My research shows that it is a 1959 292. The pushrods are for a 1955 292, while 1956 thru 1962 uses slightly shorter pushrods. The heads are 1955 292 TBird heads. Could the difficulty in spinning the engine be a result of the pushrods being too long? If not, then I guess I would need to tear it back down and build it back up again, double checking my clearances on all the bearing surfaces. Thanks for any help or suggestions you may have! Frank