Valve Adjustment

[IDave]

It could sound like a lot of things. Could miss, could just be very quiet (no "sewing machine" tappet sound), could be too noisy. Depends on how much and which direction they are off.

[MoCoNative]

Adjusted mine last night, tried it running and couldn't really do it right. So I shut it down and did them while sitting. I found they all needed adjusted a little, had 15,000 miles since last adjustment. Helped out alot. I have really been neglecting car care lately, been busy.

I tried something while doing this. Had the engine good and warm, and took temperature measurments with one of those point and shoot infared thermometers. Oh by the way those things are so cool. But what I found was temperatures around the rockers and springs and valves of around 140 to 130 degrees. When I was done, temps were down to around 130 across all the rockers and springs.

So it seems that cooling is probably less of an issue than we think. While the engine did cool some, it quit burning me to touch the rockers, I don't think you get a huge amount of shrinkage in 20-30 minutes time while adjusting and double checking.

Someone else should try this if they think of it. Kind of neat, actually found one cylinder area seemed hotter than the others, running lean maybe, vlaves were a little more out on it than the others????? I should shoot the head again after driving today to see if there are any changes between cylinders now.

[IDave]

I'm sure those cast iron heads hold their temps much better than aluminium heads.