A cautionary tale when working on push rods

Thanks for the additional info, PRH. We got lucky too as 6 of my 7 broken retainers were still wrapped around the push rods and one was still in the valley.

I promised a quick follow-up when I got the new Lunati lifters installed so here it is. I'm happy to report, that after about 50 miles, the valvetrain sounds better than ever and the 318 seems to run much smoother than ever before, which probably means the damage to the CC lifters happened early in the break-in procedure.

Here were a couple of notes and tips to hopefully help the next person:
1) I bought a new bottle of break in oil (Lucas Oil) and was generous with it on the lifter bodies, cam lobes, pushrod ends, rocker to valve stem point, etc. (which we also did the first time)
2) This time rather than adding a zinc break-in additive to the oil, I used Lunati break-in oil, every quart has the zinc and elements needed for break-in and it was about the same price as regular Mobil oil
3) It's easier to torque the rocker arm/pushrod with the intake off because you can visually see when the hydraulic lifter begins to compress so you don't over or under set the lash
4) After fully rotating the engine about 6 times using a 1/2" drive wrench (that totally sucked), I finally hooked up the remote starter (took 2 seconds) and bumped the engine over 90 degrees at a time. I just used the ratchet to make minor adjustments to get it at exactly 90 degrees that was WAY easier :)!
5) After initial start-up, the lifters will pump up and there was some slight valve noise, but after one heat cycle, it was virtually gone... the rockers arms are all firm and there is zero lash in the system so things seems to be doing OK for the moment.

We are going to put some miles on it and then hammer on it to see if we break these lifters too. If anything crazy happens, I'll report back and will probably start seeking out the lifters with the snap rings that PRH posted .