Solution!!! found 10mm swivel foot adjusters for type 4 rock

[SGKent]

Colin - I have a set you can have next time you are here as long as I haven't listed them for sale by then. I went back to polished normal screws which had better geometry on the valve tips. I also returned to spring spacers instead of the solid spacer because I am not running heavy duty valve springs. I happened to be watching a racing engine being built from the era and it was designed for very high RPM's. It had springs instead of spacers so I decided the idea VW used wasn't all that bad. My guess is when they went to hydraulic lifters, and they had to up the valve springs to control the lifters from pumping up, they had to replace the spacer springs with solid spacers to keep the rocker arm side loads under control.

Prior to the type 4 heads, other than my type 1 engine work on my 1971 bus, almost all the racing engines I built used lifter cups instead of rocker arms. I guessed that the swivel feet and solid spacers would be better, but there are geometry changes that are needed. Also all the new swivel feet I got had burrs and rough bottoms, so I had to polish them all to keep valve tip wear to a minimum, and get consistent valve clearance readings. In the end I just went back to the stock set up.
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“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin

[Wildthings]

[Amskeptic]

[NASkeet]

I had two British specification, 1974~75 VW 1800 Type 2, VW 1800 Type 4 style, AP-Series air-cooled engines. One had M8 x 1•0 mm valve-rocker adjustment screws in common with a VW 412LE, VW 1700 Type 4 style, W-Series air-cooled engine I also had, whilst the other had M10 x 1•0 mm valve-rocker adjustment screws.

I used two of the worn & pitted M10 x 1•0 mm valve-rocker adjustment screws, with the ends cut off and through-drilled on a lathe, as the basis for the spacer-mast of my oil-pressure gauge-sender, installation adapter, as illustrated in my article (see picture at the bottom, left-hand side of the second page) that was published several years ago, in Volkswagen Camper & Commercial magazine.

Nigel A. Skeet, “How to: Fitting an Oil-Pressure Gauge-Sender, Installation Adapter, to the Type 4 Engine”, Volkswagen Camper & Commercial, Issue 17, Winter 2004, Pages 44~45.

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Regards.

Nigel A. Skeet

Independent tutor (semi-retired) of mathematics, physics, technology & engineering for secondary, tertiary, further & higher education.

Much modified, RHD 1973 VW "1600" Type 2 Westfalia Continental campervan, with the World's only decent, cross-over-arm, SWF pantograph rear-window wiper

Onetime member, plus former Technical Editor & Editor of Transporter Talk magazine
Volkswagen Type 2 Owners' Club (Great Britain)

http://www.vwt2oc.net

[SGKent]

I think I just figured out why I had trouble adjusting the swivel feet when I tried them on my 2L engine. The solid lifters webcam used (and may still do that) have a plunger cup in them. It you blow air into the top of the lifter after cleaning it, it sits lower. If you blow air into the side holes then the plunger cup moves out to the snap ring. Steve at Webcam told me they were made by Johnson Controls. Jake noted the snap rings and plunger action in them back in the early 2000's in a shop forum thread. Because the lifters have no valve in them like hydraulics, they are not going to pump up like hydraulics, however oil pressure is going to take up all the slack in the interior portion when the lifter is on the base circle. This small amount of oil in the lifter will cause the swivel feet to always ride collapsed and not allow oil into them. Further, the combination of a little oil inside the lifter body, combined with the swivel is going to make it harder to adjust them when the lifter is on the base circle.
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“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin