[67bonnie455]

A rocker nut lock can back off allowing the rocker arm to loosen up. Once it unhooks the rocker from the push rod, the cam knocks the lifter out of the bore like home run ball. The push rod is probably wrapped around the crank. See if the rocker adjuster is loose on the missing lifter.

It will loose oil pressure with the missing lifter. Check the bearings and look at the piston skirts and undersides for damage from a lifter pin ball bouncing around the rotating assembly. Make sure the valve did not fall. If there is metal shavings in the pan (from a tore up push rod), you need to clean the oil gallies and put in a new pump. You may have very little damager other than the pan.

[sisco]

The lifter is in pieces in the oil pan. The rods are bend to where I cant pull them out and the rockers are loose.

[steve]

I have a feeling this will get ugly when the engine builder is approached.

[67bonnie455]

The adjuster nuts are loose or the rockers are loose? Bent push rods will cause the loose rockers. I was trying to learn if a loose adjuster caused the problem, but if you have several bent push rods, you likely have a valve train geometry problem.

What heads do you have? The short valves on the LM 6X/5C must run springs with very short minimum bind height like 1.00 or less. Often the "pockets" need to be cut to get the spring height correct and or longer valves. With a sold cam, you probably have a lot of lift. That would cause the bent push rods and broken valve springs.

IMO, the oil gallies need to re-cleaned. If the oil filter bypass opens, the metal pieces end up in the gallies and will damage the rebuild. Often over looked.

PM me the builder, I would like to know.

Sorry to hear about your motor problems.

[68WarDog]

IIRC when I ran my 70 GTO at Piedmont Dragway there was a "Sisco" on the board in that area. Are you that person? If so PM me.Highly unlikely that an engine builder will stand behind his work if performed more that a year ago, regardless of mileage.

[sisco]

Well got the engine back to the builder today. It looks like from a glance the block and all is ok. Hes checking it all out thoroughly but it sounded promising. The best news of all said hed fix it. There still are some good folks around in this industry. Looking forward to getting the bad blue Ventura back together. Thanks to all for the help

[67bonnie455]

Sounds like a good builder. It bites that you have to go through all of the time and expense to deal with the problem, but anyone can have problem with a motor. Let him have a chance to make it right. That separates the good builders from the bad ones. At our Pontiac dealership, I saw a few defective new motors and transmissions over the years.

Definitely not the guy I was thinking of.

Best of luck!