Push rods got bent

My neighbor has a 175 Allis that had a water leak into the oil so he pulled the head off thinking it was the head gasket at fault. By the way it's a 226 gas engine. So he gets a new gasket and also has the head checked for cracks. Head is good so he puts it back together and cranks' it over and it bends four push rods!!!! What happened here? Valves are not stuck I tried them all. When he got the head back did he get the same one he took in? I don't know. Are there other heads that appear the same but differ in thickness? It appears to me that the rocker shaft pedestals are too short! Even with the adjusting screws backed all the way off you cannot tighten down the shaft without compressing the valve springs to the limit! Is there a spacer that fits between the head and the pedestals? Also what is the firing order of this engine? It seems weird to me 1243 is that right?

Yes the push rods are in place correctly.

I'll check on the stands today!

If all the work is done right like installing the push rods, not changing the rocker arm assy. then look at what was done to the head like did the shop install new valves and or seats, plane the head? I'm thinking the shop might have installed the seats to deep in the head and or might be the wrong valves.

Thanks Guys for the quick response as, of tomorrow I'll be going to have my hip replaced and will be laid up a while. Thanks again

Just curious....were the 4 bent push rods either all exhaust or all intake valves?

With out taking the head off does anyone know what the valve height would be measuring from the spring seat on  the head to the end of the stem would be?

So.....are there marks on the pistons from valves hitting? Only way to bend push rods if valves aren't stuck is for valves to hit piston or springs to bottom out, not sure what will happen first but if valve stems are too long you will definitely have that problem. Were rocker arms disassembled from shaft? Did they get flipped upside down or backwards?

I take it turning the engine over by hand to watch and check what was going on was not part of the process!

Are you sure you don't have the rocker arm supports flipped upside down?? This is silly. Something that should have taken 3 to 4 hrs to do has turned into a nitemare.

I think it would be difficult to get all wrong sizes on the valves. To have a valve with too long a stem but exactly the right dimensions otherwise, then to have springs that are also that much too tall seems like a large coincidence. There could be a bad vendor out there selling the wrong set, wonder if anyone else has had this problem?

The push rods fit in a hole in the lifters so you can feel if they are in place or not. I just gat out of the hospital so won't be going outside for awhile. Once I get the head off I can check a few other things.

When I put my d15 together I got one of the rods jammed up off to the side when I put it in felt funny so I asked the mechanic who I hired and was helping. It looks right at the top but was not seated right. I have no idea if you could have actually got the valve train together just thought it was worth mentioning that they can drop in and jam up.