Pushrod Replacement - Piston Position Question

[bob00stroke]

OK, going to replace a few or all pushrod/rocker arms/pedastals on '00 7.3 F350. Have read about 2 methods on piston placement before tightening the 2 pedastal bolts.

1. Take out glow plug and insert long allen or screw driver to feel piston is at bottom while turning crank using socket on bolt on end of crank and then tighten the pedastal bolts. Of course you would be doing this for each particular piston for each pair of pushrods.

2. Ford service manual says put at 11:00 and then tighten the pedastal bolts, but wondering how that can work for all cylinders.


Doing this work due to first hearing some louder than normal ticking and now I am getting the fast "thump-thump-thump" noise out the intake. I know there may be other issues, if this don't fix it, I'm pulling the motor and shipping it to a PSD specialist, don't want a reman (rather stick with my own POS).


Thanks.

[Dirk]

The only way to do this and keep your sanity...

Pull all glow plugs..
Pick the cylinder you want to start on.
Insert coat hanger into cylinder.
Turn engine over by HAND until the piston is at TDC.
Remove the 2 bolts holding the rocker in place, remove rocker.
Remove/replace push rod.
Replace rocker arm.
Torque bolts to 20ft pound.
Move the the next cylinder.

[bob00stroke]

Thanks for your help on this. I have gotten a bunch of info off this site - I am upgrading to premium. Thanks again.

OK, top dead center makes sense, but in the thread "Push Rod - Check and replacement" it mentions putting the piston at the bottom.

If this fixes it, are these Hypermax pushrods along with all 16 new Ford "LA" stamped rockers/pedestals the way to go? or are new stock pushrods fine?

Edit 11-7-09
Well, I got the thump thump thumping noise that was coming out the intake fixed. Truck is running great now again, although I only have about 1100 miles on it so far.

The thumping out the intake was due to a broke push rod on #3 exhaust. Luckily I got the other half out of there with a super strong telescoping magnet my neighbor had and also luckily, in looking down in there with a snake inspection camera from work, there appeared to be no other damage to the lifter, head etc.

I replaced all 8 rocker/pedestal assemblies and pushrods on the passenger side because these were all date stamped LB 051 and LB 061 which are the suspect date stamps for the year 2000 defective rocker arms/pedestals. All but 2 of the driver's side ones were date stamped LA which are supposed to be OK, the other 2 were date stamped LO. It was only about $175 for the parts. I retorqued the driver's side rockers but only found one bolt that budged a little.

I did not find this the 1st time I had the valve covers off even though I used a remote starter and watched all the push rods go up and down. Even though it was broke, it was somehow still activating the rocker. Not sure why I did not see something odd then, guess I did not watch close enough. A compression test did not find it either, although I put in the new Motorcraft glow plugs so that was alright too.

I found it by putting the motor at 11:00 like the manual says, this puts all the valves near the top, then once I felt all the push rods it was obvious once I got to the broke one.

I put this project off because I thought it was going to be a big deal taking each rocker off to find the problem, when actually, working with these rockers is easy with the motor at 11:00. It is also easy to get the push rods back in the lifters, the holes in the head guide them right to the lifters and you can feel the push rod slide in to the lifter. After torquing the rocker pedestals all back down (and re-checking), you can check your push rod insert work with the remote starter just to make sure you have them in there right. I used Permatex assembly lube on the pushrod ends and the rocker arm balls. I used grease on the top of the valve stems cause the lube wouldn't stay there. Changed the oil and filter after about a 5 mile test drive because of the little bits that seem to get in there now matter how careful you are.

Last thing I would say is, IMHO, if you are going to work on one of these trucks, get a Topside Creeper, it actually made working on the truck enjoyable. Got mine from Northern Auto Parts, online, out of Sioux City Iowa. They had a special on the foldable topside creeper where you get a rolling tool tray to go along with it, the whole deal was $220 + $30 shipping. I was leery of getting one, but man, it was worth the money. I drilled a pair of extra holes 1/2 way between the others so I could bring it down as low as possible but still clear the coolant tank.