Some of you may remember my thread awhile back about my possible lifter failure. Well we finally got to tear it down and found that both intake pushrods were loose and one of the exhaust pushrods completely collapsed! I have about a 1000 miles on the bike since swapping out the se 260 cams for some tman 625's with adj. pushrods. In the end there wasn't any other damage to the motor since my tuner shut it down as soon as he heard the noise. But I was wondering how this could of happened? I never had adj pushrods before as I used the perfect fit ones in the past. Any ideas on what caused them to come loose so fast?

 

i had this happen to me, like right after i put cams in. I just frankly didnt tighten the adjuster nuts tight enough.

after I put more sauce on the wrenches everything was fine.

 

Were the pushrods the SE Quick Install Tapered units? If so, don't be surprised; it happens. The adjustor nuts are POS nuts and will hairline crack when tightenting and loosen up. Has happened twice to me and the last time the loose pushrod popped the lifter retainer clip out and it was swallowed by the oil pump. Instant loss pressure, pump and cam plate gone.

 

They were zippers pushrods. I just can't believe that 3 out of 4 pushrods were that loose. I'm just glad we caught this when we did and it didn't totally destroy my motor! What really pisses me off is the cam/pushrods were done by a highly recommended builder in my area. I can understand maybe 1 coming loose but 3?

 

I see way too many pushrod came loose threads, you won't ever see me running adjustables.

 

Nothing wrong with adjustables but I won't run anything but Smith Brothers these days. If you know what you are doing and to it right, they won't come loose. The HD SE tapered rods are nice hardware, it's the adjusting nuts that are the problem. Hard to find replacement adjustor nut with matching ID/OD but they are available. I would run the pushrods with good adjustor hardware with no worries.

 

Frankly, it seems like 99% of people who change cams use adjustables, so I'd say the percentage of them who have problems is about 0.1.

 

More like .001.

 

Well how ever you come up with your numbers it's still too many for me. I'll take the lighter and no chance what so ever of coming loose route. I don't mind the extra time it takes for the install as long as my riding time doesn't turn into wrenching time. KISS.

 

Check out Smith Brothers Easy Install.

and I don't have any problem putting blue locktight on lifter nuts.

Cause I once didn't get on hard enough once.