GT5 Cleveland Bend push rod

There's really only a couple of reasons for bending pushrods, and that is over-revving the engine, or the engine was badly assembled to start with. The rev-range can be extended with stiffer valve springs and better cam profiles, but the valvetrain geometry must be perfect or you'll have troubles like this. I'd find a shop that is familiar with the Ford 351-Cleveland (or Windsor) engine, or consider shipping it to someone who is familiar (perhaps in Australia). I also suggest a rev-limiter ignition so one does not get carried away again.... I'd also suggest a general overhaul this time around. Easiest way to identify your engine is, the Windsor V-8 has an aluminum nose section under the water pump with the Cleveland has a cast irone nose. So if its a Windsor, NONE were 4-bolt blocks. If its a Cleveland, you'll need to pull the oil pan to tell.

Welcome to the club - I chased a problem with bending pushrods for over a year, and to find the REAL cause is not easy.

By FAR, the best route is to have an *experienced* Ford mechanic look at the car. Preferably someone with a lot of 351C experience - who works on Mustangs and so forth.

My problem was caused by several small factors that all added up to bending pushrods every 500 kilometers. My (new) heads had been improperly assembled, with the spring heights incorrect. The springs were not appropriate for my camshaft. The pushrod guides needed to be modified, since the "holes" that guide the pushrods were slightly off-center and were sideloading the pushrods. I don't remember what else I had wrong, but there were a lot of things to check that only an experienced mechanic will know. Pushrod length may be a problem, for example, if you have an adjustable valvetrain .

Good luck, this can be a difficult problem to track down if it is not obvious

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Charlie McCall
1985 DeTomaso Pantera GT5-S #9375
"Raising Pantera Awareness across Europe"
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/gt5s_1985