Push Rod seals repair

[schosh]

I've determined that the Oil leaking form my engine is comming from a bad seal on one of my push rods. Is there any way to replace these seals/tubes without pulling the engine?

[silver2.0]

yeah, it's possible, or so I have heard. I have personally replaced the ones on my number 3 cylinder, so I know for a fact you can get at least most of them! Seriously though, it shouldn't be that bad, just pop off your valve cover, remove your rocker assembly, and pull on the tube. Don't forget to pull the spring out before you remove the rocker assembly. Rember how it goes too! There is an odd looking spring that holds the tubes in. Keep in mind when you pull the tubes, it will smack your knuckles every god damn time. Maybe wear gloves? My friend said he uses channel locks, and hits them with a block of wood. That sounds pretty corny to me, so I take one for the team and smash my knuckles. You probably won't get the tubes all the way out on some of the cylinders, but you should be able to replace the oring ok without pulling it out all the way. Oh, yeah, go ahead and pull the pushrod tube out too, if it makes it any easier, it won't hurt anything. Good luck!

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

There are ones that you cannot remove completely from the engine. However, you can let them "hang" at their middles from the hole in the cylinder head, so you can get at the O-rings.

I use heavy leather work gloves after mashing my knuckles too many times.

Keep the rockers and such in the correct order. I do one cylinder at a time, after setting that cylinder to TDC so there is no load on either valve. The torque spec for the (odd-size, 11mm?) rocker stand nuts is only 10 lb-ft, which won't even get the rocker stand all the way down to the head if one of the valves is open.

I find that it's a bit of a pain getting the pushrods seated in the lifters. The end of the lifter is cup-shaped, and my pushrod ends like to hang up on the edge of the cup. So I have had to fiddle with things quite a bit in order to get them to get into the cup and stay there.

I take the time to check the valve adjustment. As long as I have the cylinder at TDC and am in the area, might as well, right?

--DD