Let me make you fellow stovebolts aware of an issue I ran into recently. My 61 C20 I rebuilt last year has been running fine. Just the last few days it started making top end loud valve train noises. Slowly getting worse. I have been having trouble with this for some time. Anyway, I pulled the valve cover again. I found the cup of a pushrod broken around the rim. Fortunately, I found the 2 broken pieces before they were ingested by the engine. I enlisted Jerry "Horod Lincoln's" help for this. After explaining it and how it was broken. Jerry said the little ball on the rocker arm adjuster bolt may be worn down to a little tip. Which could get caught in the pushrod hole and break the rim of the pushrod out. Sure enough, he called it right. Upon his advice I checked the adjuster and found it exactly as he suggested. Upon further inspection I found several other adjuster bolts in similar condition. . At this point, I am going to buy all new pushrods fearing they may be stressed as well. To be honest, when I rebuilt the engine I used original pushrods but used another valve train I thought looked to be in better shape. Maybe the mismatch, maybe.i just missed it. Perhaps installation error. I dont know. I have another set of rockers that appear to be in good shape that I will swap the rocker adjuster bolts out of. Just in case you run across this kind of situation, maybe this will give you a heads up. Jerry said not many are aware of this except maybe a few old geezers like him. Well now , I am no spring chicken either, and now one more old geezer knows about it thanks to his unselfish help. Attached is some picture of the adjuster and pushrod.
