I could see a bunch of loctite crumbs causing problems in the oil pump maybe but why not clean the threads and bolts nice and dry and smear a drop of blue loctite on the first few threads?

Also I’ve used adjustable pushrods to preload hydraulic lifters on harleys a million times and set lash on tons of solid flat tappets in v8s but all I ever did on a non adjustable setup was make sure the pushrods had no lash but still could be spun in my fingers on the heel of the cam.

I guess with the valley open I can spin it around a little and look at the lifter bodies and make sure the lifter pistons are uniformly depressed an appropriate amount from a fully extended lifter? The motor didn’t really have any lifter clatter or anything before the poo hit the fan.

I just want to put it back together and feel confident- I’m not really sure why this happened unless I just didn’t properly torque the rear bolt in the first place.