Valve adjustment with degree pulley

[TheAmazingDave]

[mark tucker]

[mark tucker]

hear is an idea how about a stickey with the diferent valve adjustment procedures and let the reader choose witch one they want, or they can try each and see how easy or hard &how the engine runs for each procedure. this would be much eazyier than the how do i adjust my valves every month and the responses that ensue.......or not.

[Dale M.]

[mark tucker]

no Im just not getting in a pissing contest because you seem to be stuck in the this is the only way and it has to be right frame of mind, kinda like the bergites just cant be rong. and at some degree the other methods work for the rest of you. it's the " to some degree" that I dont like. I can do it to some degree with no fealer gauges on aluminum pushrod setups.but...not right, but to some degree and it will run, probably as good or better than most....to some degree. I tend to not do stuff to some degree unless Im degreeing a cam or BBQ ing my dinner. ever wonder why jeff gordon dosent rebuild the engine in his nascar racecar???to some degree he probably could, but teaching him to do it right.....and under stand why???not thier job.you either understand it or you dont. and there is nothing rong with that.some see it some dont&some cant.I dont know how long you have been into engines,but if you havent got it by now you wont. and there is nothing rong with that. I could ppobably screw with electronics for a few more years and still never get it. kinda like all them 0's &1's in the digital world,I just dont see it. and I dont mind. so....I do not have an argument for YOU.as it wont do any good.

[shifty6d]

I'll short answer Mark Tucker's post as I believe he's referring to the fact that the bottom of a camshafts base circle is not the area of most lash (it's usually just before the ramp of the lobe) and that adjusting them "in order" or however you want to refer to it leaves room for improvement and potential for noise when the cam actually rotates to the area of greatest lash.....correct?

[Dan Ruddock]

[mark tucker]

no.

[Scott Novak]

Or start with Cylinder #4 and turn the engine pulley clockwise. #4, #3, then to the other side for #2 and #1.

Scott Novak

[GK.Thing]

You can if you want use a Yellow pencil with and eraser (color optional) when the Cylinder pushed the pencil all the way to the top watch the valves and you can see all 4 strokes of the piston. Adjust when @ TDC. go and order you wish.
I m just throwing that out there.

[mark tucker]

[Dale M.]

[smkn_vw]

[FreeBug]

The reason I like andy198712's way is to only have one valve cover off at a time, as I have to do mine outdoors, and I like to slightly jack up one side at a time, sometimes taking a wheel off for access, and limiting oil seepage.

[mark tucker]

I have found an addition to the way I do it I walk around the car thunp the hood, then kick a tire. then go to the rear of the car and wipe down the rear tires so there is no dirt, then clean the floor.then I go stick in a good cd in the dvd/cd player.have a drink of diet dew. then go rest for a while.when fully rested I go back out and circle the car 3 times to the left. look at the dist cap then circle to the right 2 times and look at the carb idle ajustment screw on the left carb forward barrell. smile and get up and get a snack.then turn up the raido and put a tray under the head &pull off a valve cover...it dosent matter witch one as my car dosent know left from right.so.....I then proceed as normal with the valve adjustment in any order I wish.after all it's much eazer if you dont try to complicate it with a bunch of ## and turn this way this much back up remember witch to do what to or not sit down turnarouns and do the hokey pokey. it's pretty effing simple as long as you dont try to complicate it.learing the basics of how a 4 stroke engine works is helpful as thats what your fallowing and working on. witch stroke or cylinder dosent realy matter. the engine dosent know what cylinder is # 1.and it dosent matter.

[smkn_vw]

[Dr OnHolliday]

Adjusting the valve lash according to an arcane formula while chanting magical VW incantations and burning chicken bones and sacred candles - is just another SAMBA perversion of logic.

For over 50 years I have been successfully adjusting valves by noting that one valve in a cylinder is closed to its approx. maximum when the other valve in the cylinder is open to its maximum (as evaluated visually). Its just that freakin' easy....
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1965 Type 1 sunroof Baja / about 70k miles on self-rebuilt '74 1600 and counting / SP heads and aftermarket valve keepers / non-doghouse shroud with external cooler and filter / 1.5 qt extended sump / Weber 32/36 DFAV progressive carb / 009 dist with Pertronix / 1.25 ratio rockers and ball adjusters / 1.5" stainless steel J-pipes and carbon steel baja exhaust

[FreeBug]

That's why everyone agrees the only real viable solution is self-adjusting hydraulic lifters.

Anything else is just goofing around, really...

Plus, I'm pretty sure they are guaranteed to never need to be adjusted for the rest of your life, even if you don't smoke.

[thechief86]

With aluminum pushrods, I just turn the engine until the valve I want to adjust is as closed as it's going to get, and I adjust it to where I can just barely hear a "click" when I wiggle the rocker.

For steel pushrods, I do the same thing, except when the valve is as closed as it will get, I set the valve lash to where there is more or less no play, but I can still spin the pushrod pretty easily.

I do this every other oil change. The steel pushrods with sweeper style ratio rockers in my dual port are just a tad quieter than the aluminum pushrods with stock rockers in my single port.
Both engines run very sweet, and I haven't had any issues with burnt valves or mushroomed adjusters in the 3 or 4 years I've been doing it this way.

Before I got lazy, I would start on the compression stroke of cylinder #1 at TDC, adjust to 0.004", both intake and exhaust, then rotate counterclockwise 180*, then do #2 the same way, then #3, then #4, then test drive, and have a beer when I got back from the test drive.

The only problem I've ever had has been a sinking valve seat in a dual port head that would let the valve tighten up until it stayed open, then I'd get a misfire. I ran this fubar'd head so long that I was stacking washers under the rocker mounts, until I ran out of room to do that, then pulled the engine and swapped the head. It would run about a month between adjustments before the misfire, and I just got to a point where I knew the head was screwed, and I was about ready to replace the pistons anyway, so I ran it until I couldn't adjust the misfire out of it.
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"A poor workman always blames his parts... Ya gotta have skillz to hang junk." -johnnypan

[mark tucker]

some tymes a sinking valve seat is fuel related...and some tymes it is related to the valve adjustment.some tymes it is running too hot. some tymes the chambers are too hot, like from too restrictive exhaust and sometimes shit happens