[DeTomaso] BBORR engine failure clues

[Garth Rodericks]

<<< Push rods on back two cylinders are barely bent.  You have to roll them on a pane of glass to tell.  Could have been that way for a while. >>>

Your pushrods may not be bent. Check the spec for the allowable tolerance.

FWIW, I had PAW hardened pushrods in my Mustang and the ball end on one of the PAW 
pushrods snapped off while idling through town, which caused the rocker to rotate 
sideways and the pushrod began to hammer the underside of the valve cover (only for the 
few seconds it took me to turn the key off and coast off the road).

Those pushrods were the ONLY part in the engine where I tried to save a few $$ (the cost 
was half what the Motorsport pushrods cost at the time, and "were the same thing" 
according to the guy behind the counter at PAW), so decided to pull them all and replace 
with Motorsport hardened pushrods.

When the Motorsport pushrods arrived I rolled them on a flat surface/glass and found that 
they looked bent. I called the Motorsport tech line and they told me what the allowable 
clearance was between the surface and the pushrod - I checked and they were within 
spec. Interestingly, the crappy PAW hardened pushrods were much straighter by 
comparison, but apparently the material/manufacturing quality was not up to par.

Cheers!
Garth (need to order custom length pushrods for my new 383 Cleveland stroker)
#4033