Bent Pushrod, what caused it?
 

I pulled off my heads last week and noticed two bent pushrods. (502 Gen V MPI) I pulled the valves out of the heads today and none of them were stuck. What could have caused this?

Thanks

Re: Bent Pushrod, what caused it?
 

Usually sticking a valve or floating them are the main causes of bent push rods. Another would be hitting a valve with a piston, but other bad things happen then :eek: You may have a broken or weak spring as well.

Re: Bent Pushrod, what caused it?
 

I bent 2 pushrods when I had a cam lobe round off. The pushrod slipped out of place and bent.

Re: Bent Pushrod, what caused it?
 

Were they on the same cylinder? If it was run real lean for a period of time, and you were lucky enough not to melt a piston, the valve may have stuck when swelled up from the heat.

Re: Bent Pushrod, what caused it?
 

Thanks for the replies. There doesn't seem to be any sign of the valves hitting the top of the piston from valves floating. The two bent pushrods were not from the same cylinder. But, the valves in the two cylinders with the bent rods were much lighter in color than the rest of the cylinders? Is that a sign of leanness?

Thanks

Re: Bent Pushrod, what caused it?
 

Were they feeding off of the same side of the manifold?

Re: Bent Pushrod, what caused it?
 

No, they were on opposite sides of the manifold.

Re: Bent Pushrod, what caused it?
 

Let me rephrase that, each side of the carb feeds four cylinders, two on each side. What I'm getting at is maybe a jet on one corner of the carb is blocked and causing two cylinders in that corner to run lean. It could be one on each side of the motor. Which ones was it?

Re: Bent Pushrod, what caused it?
 

MonkeySpanker,

This is on a fuel injected 502. 1995 502 MAG MPI

Re: Bent Pushrod, what caused it?
 

I would look for weak or broken valve springs or possible water ingestion on those cylinders.