Broken pushrods on 350 engine -- C6 Firebird Forum

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Date Posted: 19:28:18 04/21/04 Wed
Author: Greg Baird
Subject:

Broken pushrods on 350 engine

Hello, I am working on a 77 Chevy Nova with a 350 engine. The car has very very low miles, under 12000. It had been setting for 6 to 8 years. When I started it, I noticed one of the dual exhausts was smoking. Upon checking the compression, I found that the side that was smoking had 2 cylinders with low compression. Cylinders 6 and 8 to be exact. Upon pulling the valve covers, I found that cylinder 6 had the exhaust push rod broken, and cylinder 8 had the intake push rod broken. Upon taking the push rods out, I found that the ends were broken off each of them. I had hoped to find the ends laying on top of the block when I took the intake manifold off, but only one was laying there. No signs of the other one at all. I also noticed a very small quantity of antifreeze (maybe a 1/4 of a teaspoon full laying on the block on near the lifters of the broken pushrods.

I thought it best to let you know all that I know so far.

Here are the questions:

1. I am wondering if there is any chance that the missing chunk of push rod of making it to the oil pan. Since it is not anywhere in view, that is the only place that I can think of it going.

2. If it made it to the pan, is there any chance of it damaging anything along the way?

3. If it is in the pan, is there enough concern, that I should pull the oil pan to get it out, or would in be relatively inert and not a concern?

4. Since the two valves were not working, would it have blown the headgasket, making antifreeze get into the engine on that side? It did look like the furthest back port in the head on #8 was wet with antifreeze. There is no obvious sign of antifreeze in the oil when checking the dip stick.

Any and all ideas appreciated

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Replies:

[> Re: Broken pushrods on 350 engine -- Dave Kratzmeyer, 14:13:04 04/24/04 Sat

1__Yes, it's likely that the pushrod went into the oilpan__2__Yes, it could have struck something on it's way to the panBUT if it had done any damage it probably would have shown up fairly quickly__3__I would expect it to stay on the bottom of the oilpan and,at worst, get sucked up to the oil pump pickup screen where it would be harmless__4__No, the valves not opening would not cause a blown head gasket, the antifreeze may well have spilled put of the intake when you removed it__ I would suggest turning the engine thruogh a couple of revolutions and watching the movement of all the lifters, particularly those that had the broken pushrods, and, if everthing looks okay, out it back together to see what you've got__One other thing you can do if you've got the necessary tools is to do an air pressure check on cyls # 6 and 8,connect a hose from an air compressor to the cylinder via the spark plug bore and watch for air bubbles in the filled radiator ( you'll need the intake back on to do this)__Good Luck__