Valve Adjustment..Hot or Cold? (1 Viewer)

Asking for input:
I am doing some maintenance on my 1990 '62 and toward the end of the day I decided to adjust my valves on a stone cold engine. I have recently read threads on this board where a couple of folks have indicated it doesn't really matter hot or cold. I have had this discussion on 3FE Yahoo groups, and the consensus there is warm DEFINATELY warm! So lets hear it, I havent started the truck again since I adjusted them and won't untill this weekend when I get my parts, but I would like to hear any argument for adjusting them again later after I get it atarted again, or not to worry about it. This is my first FJ62 I have had it since July and it has 175,xxx miles on the clock.
Todd

I am still new to this, almost one year of cruiser ownership under my belt. (or is it out of my wallet??) Anyways, I read some of the posts you mention and from what I read I get that it should be warm if not hot. As everyone knows metal reacts to temperature, expanding when warmed, and contracting when cooled. Since the time you want the valves in proper adjustment is when the engine is running therfore warm or hot even. From this I decided to check mine while running from a cold start. I repeatedly checked the tolerences with feeler guage. As the engine warmed, the tollerences changed, tight valves got looser loose valves got tighter, I burned my knuckle. Once I got the engine to normal operating temp, I shut it off and went with my last numbers, adjusted valves in small very small increments the way they needed to go, then fired it back up and checked did this once more and had them all within spec. My cruiser now idels smoother than ever, and seems to have a bit more power, using the word power loosely. It also seems like I am burning less fuel, but have not checked milage.

warm is better, but honestly, it is a VERY slight difference between warm and cold.

Set Cold for initial adjustment and then do it warm later.

If you do the adjustment cold, make them a couple thousandths looser. I do mine this way and have tested them after hot to make sure. They turn out fine with out burning the crap out of me.

Loose valves will ruin cams, followers, valves rockers, etc.

Tight valves will ruin valves. They have to be REALLY loose to damage the cam or rockers, don't they?

You don't have a hair on your ass unless you do it running!

Seriously, I did that on my '83 & wondered how the hell I used to do it back in the dark ages on SBCs. I even have better wrenches now!