Started break in on a fresh 440...pressure at 60 pounds and all was fine-- couple of weeks latter started motor and heard a tapping noise... sounded like a lifter- but noise went away and came back
And now is gone- but oil pressure drops to 22 pounds when oil and motor gets hot-- drivers side
exhaust is blowing blue smoke --- when i give it more gas the oil pressure goes up but I still have the blue smoke from drivers side exhaust—passenger side is clean

22 at idle & it jumps up when you goose it you're ok. I'd suspect a leaking valley pan intake gasket with a slight leak on the drivers side.

Is the smoke comming out the exhaust pipe or comming off the engine?

drivers side exhaust

Pull the intake and pan and look for evidence of the leak that Robert pointed out might be there.

ok -- but would a bent push rod cause this smoke-?

A bent pushrod would only disable one cyl's power output. either the valve stems seals are bad(not likely as this eng is fresh), a bad head gasket letting oil thats going up to the valvetrain from the cam journal leak over to a cyl(extremely unlikely) or it's the tin valley pan gasket(very likely) especially w the amt of smoke & w it smoking on one bank. People install valley pans dry & have no issues but I believe the tin is not flexible enough to seal vacuum & I use permatex #2, the thick brown goo in a toothpaste tube a light EVEN coat on each side of the tin on the port openings.

so do you think the oil- tapping noise- and blue smoke coming from the driver side exhaust are not related??

not related.

Tapping noise could be exahust leak.

Have you pulled the intake yet?

yes- a small miss i am going to start working on it 2 night

How could oil be burned in a cyl that is not firing?

update--- Took the valve covers off and noticed that one of the push rods was not under the rocker arm --- I pulled the rockers arm off and pulled put a new push rod in --- the old push rod did not look bent --- i put it back together and started the motor—it still looks like it smoking but it is hard to tell because its dark --- the miss seems to be gone .. I need to check it when I have more light--- I am curious what would cause the push rod to come out of place—I hope this is the problem

bump

Could be that it slipped out of position when you bolted the rockers down. Seen it happen more than once. That was your clatter that quit. If it isn't missing now drive it a bit. It may take a little time to clean out good and quite smoking.

its is still smoking after 5 min of use-- when i give it gas the smoke seems to go away--- but comes back at idle ... i am wondering what would cause the rod to fall out if it was put in right..
any suggestions on what to do next -- i am trying to avoid pulling the head

ok - i have to pull the intake to get to the head-
but i do not think i have a intake leak- not when i found the push rod out of place- i am afaid that some thing in the head caused the push rod to fall out---

your heads are fine