Valve adjustment

[marfulle]

I want to adjust the valves in my 48 plymouth. It has a 1951 motor, but I think the clearance should be the same. Do I need to take off the intake and exhaust to get to the valves? What should the clearance be and which one is the intake and which one in the exhaust? Thank you for all the help. It has been awhile since I have posted a thread. My car is driving and everything seems to be good. Next is going to be the body and paint.

[steveplym]

I want to adjust the valves in my 48 plymouth. It has a 1951 motor, but I think the clearance should be the same. Do I need to take off the intake and exhaust to get to the valves? What should the clearance be and which one is the intake and which one in the exhaust? Thank you for all the help. It has been awhile since I have posted a thread. My car is driving and everything seems to be good. Next is going to be the body and paint.

Here's a picture of the settings in the service manual.

Go here on the main page and there is lots of info on valve adjustment under tech tips.

http://www40.addr.com/~merc583/mopar/framesets/techtipframeset.html

With which one is intake and which one is exhaust. It varies on each cylinder. What I did was start at #1 TDC and looked to see which one was opening up, that was the intake as it would open first, and then the exhaust last. I went through and checked all that and marked them on a sheet of paper. Then I turn the engine by hand and adjusted them to spec.

I still had some noise after adjusting them the first time. I did adjust them hot with gloves on. After that I went thru each one with the engine running and when the noise stopped or got quieter with the feeler gauge in between the valve and the tappet I would adjust it some more. It took care of a lot of my noise.

Just be careful as you don't want to over adjust them and burn a valve. It's better to have a little bit of noise and no burned valves, rather than the other way around.

[Young Ed]

How frequently should this be done? Neither my car or truck have been touched since the shop rebuilt the engines.

[woodie49]

When I got my '49, I needed to adjust the valves a couple times.

You can do it without removing anything except the right fender access and the valve covers.

If you adjust the valves hot, you'll burn the snuff out of your hands. There are two or three valves that are just impossible to get to without also hitting the exhaust.

The first time I adjusted them cold, which helped, but it was still very noisey.

The second time, I let the engine get up to operating temp and carefully adjusted to the hot setting. Thick leather gloves are a must if you do this because you will end up touching the exhaust manifolds a few times.

You really want to get a set of long wrenches to do the job and make sure you forearms are protected.

I think the sequence for intake and exhaust vales is: E II EE II EE II E

There is a very good giude to performing this task in the tech section of this forum. If I were more computer savy, I would attach it for you.

This is a hot and fairly dirty job, and it does require a bit of patience, but the results, at least for me, are well worth it. I think you should just bite the bullet and commit to doing it hot.

The other helpful hint that I learned doing this is that, with the valve covers off, you can easily find TDC. You don't need to pull the head plug in No.6. Just line up the timing on the balancer and see if you are at TDC - you have a 50/50 chance. If you can't adjust the appropriate sets of valves, you need to turn it (the engine) a full turn. You can do that by using the fan or fan belt, just don't bend anything. You adjust half your valves at TDC and the other half one turn off TDC.

[greg g]

there should be a removable access panel in the pass side inner fender. If you jack up the car, remove the wheel, the side covers are easier to get at, not easy but easier. You can also make turning the engine through a few revolutions easier by pulling the plugs, then you don;t have to fight the compression stroke.

A little loose is much better than too tight. Tight valves won't close all the way ad will lose compression and might burn the valves and seats.

[Don Jordan]

I wonder if the guy that designed that valve set up in the Plymouth is giggling to himself.

I remember my 36 Chevy - you could adjust the valves with the motor running.

I put dual exhaust on my Plymouth - like others I haven't adjusted the valves since the engine was rebuilt but when the time comes I fear I may have to take the manifolds off. Is that not silly?

[marfulle]

Thank you everyone for your comments. I am going to attempt next weekend. Will let you know how it turns out.