Hey everyone, took me a little to get back here but I seemed to have corrected all the issues I had! keeping my fingers crossed! Motor sounds good, quit and smooth now. I guess after all these years a lot of the parts were like me, getting tiered. This is what I found and did, maybe it will help someone else out. First off the "rockers hopping off", I found it was a couple problems giving the same result. I noticed the rocker studs were pulling up out of the head on the right bank, the left side was fine, I replaced them with screw in 3/8"x7/16" studs. To deal with the cam "walking" I pulled the trans and noticed that when I had it at the machine shop to have the block cleaned, checked for cracks ect. When he put the cam bearings in and installed the rear cam welsh plug he had it flush to the block, I replaced it with a new one and set it deeper into the block, no more cam "walking". The bent push rod issue I had stemmed from the studs pulling up and the adjusting locking nuts were backing off on me. NEW LOCKING NUTS A MUST! Pulled the intake off, took out all the spark plugs and valve covers, spun the motor over and watched the valve train, cam walk was good, rockers were all but one nice and even. The one that was not kept walking off to the side of the valve stem and on to the retainer. I'm not sure if it was a factory error or mine when the stud hole was drilled, I'm thinking mine, but it was just enough to off set it and made it walk to the side. Rather than changing the head I decided to heat that stud (after it was installed) and align it correctly so that it was straight and even, it did not take much at all. Now all the push rods and rockers move evenly as they should, no more cam walking and all is smooth and no visual issues. Assembled everything, it started right up, ran smooth and even, sounded good. I ran it for about a 30/45 minutes to see if it was going to show any more issues, took it for a test drive down the street and back, all seems to be good so far. Thanks folks.
