I'm in the process of swapping out my 5.7l '03 1500 valve springs and for the life of me I can't not get the pushrods lined up and the rocker arm back into place. I know the short rods are the intake and the long are the exhaust but for whatever reason it seems like one of the rods is keeping the shaft from mating to the valve train properly. It's pushing it up probably a 1/4-1/2" so when I try to get the next rod in that one won;t let the shaft go down far enough to seat properly. Am I missing something here? Any tips on how to get this thing back in? I've been f*&$@& with it since dinner time yesterday. And here I thought the spring swap would be the hard part.

 

Likely the pushrod isn't seated in the lifter fully. Try manually turning the motor over by hand and get that lifter to ride on the base circle of the cam. Check the install height with others and ensure its normal. there will always be a couple pushrods out further than others as they will be riding on the cam lobes, but only just over a quarter inch more max on a stock hemi. You just tighten the rocker shaft down per instruction and those springs just compress further where the pushrods are riding higher.

 

Got it! I think I was just overly paranoid about cranking down on the bolts and bending something. Covers are back on, now all that's left is the brake booster/master cylinder.