Here's the bit from
http://www.birfield.com/~morgan/tech/valves.html, which no longer is active.
Jim Chenoweth on Valve Adjustment:
No, you do not adjust valves with the engine running. Sounds like a good way to break tools, fingers, rocker arms... Adjusting valves w/ engine running applies to some silly hydraulic cammed American engines. Run the engine to operating temperature. Remove air cleaner & valve cover. Use a long 3/8 ratchet with a 14MM socket and crack all the adjuster lock nuts loose. With the key off, put vehicle in 4th gear, 2-hi. Now rock vehicle while watching the timing window on bellhousing. You can easily move the engine in small increments by bumping the weight of the vehicle against it in fourth gear. When the engine gets to the TDC mark (the line, not the ball) you can adjust half of the valves. Then bump vehicle (forward or backward, doesn't matter) to rotate the crank 360, back to the TDC mark. Adjust the other valves. The two groups of valves are 1,2,3,5,7,9 and 4,6,8,10,11,12. Check the Haynes manual to verify these numbers. When you think you're all done, double check all lock nuts for tightness, this will tell you if you forgot to adjust any (Now you know why the FIRST thing you did was break them all loose.) Now you can start the engine (If you can plug all the disconnected vacuum fittings) and listen to how quiet things are, even w/ the valve cover removed.
The intake valves are set at .008", and the exhaust valves at .014". You use a feeler gauge for this work. The tools you'll need to set the valves are a 14mm wrench, a big flat-head screwdriver and the aforementioned feeler gauge. I've been told that the gauge should feel "snug" - some friction on the metal as you slide it in and out. There's a neato tool from snap-on just for this task that combines the wrench & screwdriver, so you only need two hands (instead of two-and-a-half) to set the timing.
Sometimes the act of tightening the locking nut on the valve adjuster (wc?) will cause it to move along the rocker shaft laterally, creating a false tightness. Make sure that the rocker is centered on the rocker shaft after you tighten it.
Also, the valve cover gasket occasionally comes loose, and reinstalling with this thing loose and not properly seated will cause some nasty oil leaks, blue smoke from under the hood, nervous looks from your wife and green faces on your kids. Not that I'd know. In my experience the valve cover gasket for a 2F from Toyota is rubber or nylon rubber. When mine came loose, I gave it a visual inspection, then cleaned it and the rim of the valve cover gently with a rag and some brake cleaner. I reassembled it with black RTV (between gasket and cover), put it on the tailgate and let a spare tire sit on it overnight.
While you're doing the valves you might as well check idle and fuel mixture settings on the carb and the distributor timing.
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Morgan Fletcher <morgan@hahaha.org>
Last modified: Thu Apr 20 15:56:02 PDT 2000