390 Pushrod Length

I have had the heads on my 390 GT rebuilt and i think it may be the second time, Anyways they had to be rebuilt because they did not have harden seats and the valves pulled up and I had no compression in 3 cylinders. The machine shop also milled the heads .015. The push rods I took out were 9.62. I know I need to replace with shorter push rods.

I am reading the ford manual and it states to measure the following:

Valve stem to valve rocker arm clearance should be within specifications with the hydraulic lifter completely collapsed. Section 8-1 page 8-9. I am looking at the clearance specs, Page 8-135, and that seems to be quite a gap. 1/10 of an inch?? Am I reading this right or is this a misprint.

image

There is another method to measure pushrod length and I have a pushrod checker, but what I do not know is what the lifter preload should be.I saw one site online mention .05. Is this correct? BTW, I am at TDC and reading Cylinder 1. The lifters have bee replaced.

Finally, I have measured using the method above and I am coming up with a pushrod length of roughly 9.4375. This is quite a difference from 9.62. It seem to great, what am i doing wrong.

Thanks for any input, Larry

One other note, the machinist replaced the springs with Ford 406 spec springs.

Hydraulic lifters are good with variance from .050" - .150" so those will save you many times. There are also “lash caps” that can be placed over the end of valve stems to make up for excessive machining. Your engine sounds like it could use these.