use mig welder with Argon. you'll get better results.

a welder, eh? I just finished putting in a rollcage in another fine British product. Perhaps we could trade some pointers. I'm just mig-welding and really have no idea if I'm any good and would love to know what i can do to improve. I'm about to leave for a week, but would love to meet up some time. We are racing gocarts as a club (against another MINI club) at the carlsbad K1-speed on Sat July 18th at 10am. You're welcome to come by and meet the few of us who are going to do our best to "represent".

Gracias amigos! This is great! The weather is nice so we are fixing the little car now. Got the pushrod out with the instructions i got from this forum and it worked. The rod was rubbing inside the pass through hole just like Armycook's. I reset the rockers to check the rest. I got some straight extra pushrods in the big box parts that came with the car. i appreciate the offer though Spank! Now the pushrods are in with Haynes manual in front of me. I sent my son on an errand to buy us a feeler gauge for valve adjustment. Dont know where to start haha! I'm gona to look for more info on this forum about that part now. 

I'm a welder by trade so engine mechanical stuff like this is like speaking rocket science for me.

I remember it kicked my establishing tdc when I was going through the firing order. Mine didn't have any markings on crank pulley and inside that inspection hole on the tranny side. Had to use barbecue skewer inserted inside the #1 sparkplug hole.

Absolutely, most stock rocker shafts will allow you to back off the adjuster and simply slip out the bad pushrod.  The shafts I was working with on the other post were full roller with solid spacers, AND I needed to modify the pedestals for oil flow, hence the head-stud un-doing. 

I've got a bunch of small bore pushrods and I'm happy to give you a couple to replace your bent ones. I'm in Escondido. You don't need to drain the coolant or disassemble anything. Do what armycook and Dan say-- with the spring spacers, you can just slide that rocker out of the way and lift out the pushrod. Worst case is you can slide out the entire rocker shaft after removing the set screw. I've done that a few times to replace bad rockers without loosening the head studs.

You missed our SDMinis breakfast meeting yesterday morning in Escondido. Next month it'll be down in Mission Valley and then it's back up in Esco for Sept.

I'm not a mini subject expert but I'd like to share this experience I had on my traumatic FIRST R&R cylinder head gasket replacement job. i remember i had 1 slightly bent pushrod and I found it right away through visual inspection by turning the engine over and spinning the pushrods one by one with my finger. One appeared to be wobbly so I was able to spin, wiggle then pull it out with no problem by backing the adjuster and pulling that rocker sideways.  The pushrod had obvious wear on the bent part of the rod. It was rubbing against the walls of the cylinder head. Wasn't binding that bad but had to be replaced. Did another valve adjustment and worked. 

Interesting thought...

If you know which rod is bent, couldn't you just rotate the engine so that the valve is fully released (closed), then back off the adjuster all the way, slide the rocker sideways and pull the rod? The only tough ones would be valve 1 and 8 but they might be sllid off the shaft if the pins and washers were removed. ???

I appreciate the help. I'll report back asap what I find.

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Knowing that a pushrod is bent, I wouldn't drive it.  New pushrods won't break the bank and if you're careful, you can replace them without removing the head.

Check this out:  //www.minimania.com/msgThread/117907/1/1/How_many_time_can_you_change_the_rockers

Here's what I'd do:

1. Drain the coolant to below the head gasket
2. Slacken the rocker adjustment screws
3. Loosen and remove the rocker pillar nuts
4. Loosen and remove the rear-most head nuts - securing the rear of the rocker pedestals (I'd do this sequentially, in stages, from the middle outwards)
5. Remove the rocker gear 
6. Now the tricky part - there will be some 'sticktion' from oil sitting in the well of the cam follower, so rotate the pushrod as you gently pull up on it to ensure that the follower is left behind on the camshaft.
7. Change/replace the pushrods
8. Reposition the rocker gear, ensuring that pushrods mate up to the rocker adjustment screws.
9. Loosely refit the head and rocker pedestal nuts
10. Sequentially tighten and torque the Head nuts to 40 or so lbs/ft - not more than 45 lbs/ft.
11. Sequentially tighten and torque the rocker pedestal nuts to 25 lbs/ft
12. Sequentially crack and re-torque all of the head nuts 1 at a time to the same figure as used in step 10
13. Adjust the valves
14. Refit rocker cover
15. Refill coolant
16. Fire it up -

Hope this helps -

There are some knowledgeable people in the san diego area that could give the car an educated listen I am sure.

One of those Harbor Freight metal stethoscopes can hep in isolatng the location of the noise.

Terry

Run it  without the rocker cover on to try to isolate the source.

Minimans: I'll let this thread brew for a few days and narrow down my options and then I'll take it to a shop. Goodluck with me finding a sympathetic mechanic these days. most shops will charge an arm and a leg especially when they sense you don't know what the f. is really wrong with he car. I'm currently reading other members' posts about pinging and knock To see a similar scenario. I'm pretty sure a LOT of members here went through the same hurdle of knowing the car before they become mini experts.

Cupcake: I wish I know where exactly the sound is coming from. But pretty sure it's around the rocker assembly / cylinder head area and nowhere else.

im talking to the old owner now and getting some details how they installed the head back together because he really insists the pushrods were straight before they installed the head. I just want to have ideas how this is supposed to be installed back without it bending.  

I think before you go off spending money on stuff you don't need I'd find a mechanic that is sympathetic to mini's and get a GOOD dignosis! valve train noise can be caused by lots of different things and you need to find out first, there are lots of capable mini specialist's down in San diego and surrouding area's. a bent pushrod could cause a tap but if you adjusted the tappets and took out that excessive clearence it's unlikely to be that could be a broken spring, worn cam lob/follower, worn rocker shaft or any of a dozen things.....................

Are you saying the push rod is hitting the head somewhere? The sound from this would be regular NOT random.

Good morning lads! My name is Hector. I'm an owner of a very small software company here in Oceanside,CA and one of my clients paid me with a classic mini for a simple payroll system I'm building for him. I've always wanted one and I do have decent knowledge with hotrods. I did some research and compared to the American muscle that the mini requires a much intricate knowledge and patience. So I bought  the Haynes manual and did some easy maintenance and installed a few goodies from overseas minispares until I found Minimania! The car is running but needed some attention I believe.

Im a former marine and proud to be supporting American companies so here I am now.  

My current issue is that the car has this random ticking noise when idle. I thought it just needed valve adjustment and so I adjusted all clearance at .012. The ticking sound is still there unfortunately. The car is a 1968 mk2 Cooper with a matching newly rebuilt 998 stock engine and internals (late last year). I asked him if the pushrods were bent before they installed the head back and he said it was all straight so I'm guessing that they probably bent it when they turned the motor after installing the head. Probably didn't loosen the rocker adjusters, placed all pushrods back, pushrod didn't seat properly and just torqued the rocker assembly and head.

I read the thread about Airtoair's Play Guess the noise and mine is somewhat similar but mine is there all the time (ticking noise) but the owner claimed that it's been like that daily driven since without issues after they replaced gasket last october 2014. He  showed me the bent #4 pushrod when it was loose and I can easily spin the pushrod with my finger and it's pretty obvious. There no scouring around it. Everything seems fine with compression, timing and performance and he kept telling me that's exactly what itS supposed to sound like. He told me not to worry since most old minis are the same. Just tired sounding and I think it's BS.

my question is how long do I have until it breaks since my 18 year old likes to drive it a lot. I told him not to go over 65mph at 4000-4500 rpm on the tach. I'm planning on just replacing the pushrods and see what happens. (Hoping the lifters and followers are ok) Is there a way to install the new pushrods without bending them? The head is newly rebuilt and I'm hoping a new set of pushrods will fix it.