djnoir

I recently picked up my second ford truck, an 86 F-150 4x4 with a carburated 300 straight six and a 3speed with O/D.
The truck has sat for 13 years on a farm, I got it towed back to my place where we changed the starter, ignition coil and a few other things, and got it fired up to find a few sticky valves.
We pulled the valve cover off and got them unstuck, but found two bent pushrods that had popped out of the rockers. We got the valves unstuck, Straightened the pushrods as a temporary fix to get it to my mechanics garage where we'd do the rest of the work.
3 days later, in the cold canadian weather it wouldn't start, we pulled the valve cover off again and found three intake valves stuck, and one more pushrod(a different one than before) had popped out and bent.
We got it running enough to pull into the garage, then went to get some new pushrods.
I got the OE pushrods, but when we got back, we realised that they are about 60 thou shorter than the ones in my motor.
I called the parts store, they said they could order in some smaller ones, but they couldn't get any longer pushrods.
What's going on? Is there anywhere to get longer pushrods? I've looked, but can't find any information at all about this.
Hopefully you guys can shed some light on this.
Thanks!

Atlee

From everything I've read so far, it will never be put in the F150 lineup. Being cast iron, it's pretty heavy to be put in he half tons. Remember, the buying public is now getting crew cab pickups in lieu of sedans now. They are becoming the "family car". And as such, Ford as well as the other manufacturers are doing everything in their power to drive up the CAFE numbers.

That 7.3L was designed for heavy truck use, not every day grocery getter duty.

If I had to replace my HDPP F150 today, it's be with a F250 with 6.2L engine.