Hi Guys. I have silly question regarding some push rods I purchased from falcon on ebay. I am putting together a 1950 cadillac 331 and can't decide what way round they go, also 8 of them have black ends and the other 8 are silver, is there a reason for this? I have attached a pic I found on this site from a previous post. Hope some one can point me in the right direction. I'm no mechanic but I don't mind giving anything ago. Kind regards Andy
Fat end (larger radius) goes up against the rocker. I would proceed with caution and do some meticulous prep measurements before you use these pushrods (didn’t make sense that half are silver too!). If the motor has been apart before, you could have a miss match of stuff…., there are both 1.5 and 1.62 rockers that use different pushrod lengths (change happened around 1955 if I recall right). Also if the heads or pushrod stands have been decked you may need a different length also. Also- steel shim vs composite head gasket thickness can vary. I would buy or borrow a pushrod measuring tool to check it out. Several of us have used Smiths custom length pushrods and they are pretty cheap considering they are custom fit to your application. For my Caddy motor (and probably most hydro cams they recommended .060 of lifter preload. Just saying be careful because you could have a loose pushrod or worse, have one bottomed out on the lifter stroke and wipe out a cam. Let us know how it goes! Matt
Thanks Matt for your prompt reply. I will check the pushrods out again and put them in the correct end up as you suggeste. Thanks for your help. Kind regards Andy
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