Triumph Repair: TR4 1963, wynnewood pa, rocker shaft

Question
Car is very very sluggish, won't go over 20 mph and lots of white smoke from the exhaust. So, I opened up the valve cover to find one of the pushrods snapped at the top. I have a repair manual on the way, should be here in a few days, but until then, can u tell me what are the steps to replace it, what should I buy, how long will it take, and is there any prep work I can do?

Thank you so much for taking the time to help me. Truly appreciated.

All the best

 M.A. Santomero, OC
Wynnewood, PA

Answer
Hi Marc,

It is not difficult to replace a push rod but you may need to do a few test to see if you can determine why it broke. First I would set the piston of the cylinder that had the broken push rod down a little from the top dead center of the compression stroke. Then use a pry bar to move the valve down to confirm that it moved freely with only the spring pressure holding it up. Once you have done that back out the adjustment screw in the rocker arm as far as you can and just force the rocker over to one side against the spring on the rocker shaft and put the push rod in. You should be able to let the rocker arm back into place and adjust the valve clearance at that time. If the adjusting screw don't retract enough to slide the rocker into place you may have to pry the valve spring down just a little.

When you are finished that run a compression test on all four cylinders (throttle open) This is very important don't skip this. You should see about 135 PSI to 170 PSI on all cylinders with little difference between cylinders.

Howard