Hydraulic valve adjustment made easy - Your Engine Guy

hi I'm Ken Olson from Ellison machine shop and today i'm bringing you inside someplace the general public normally doesn't go you're inside the assembly room here which is normally off-limits to most people this is our assembly room which you get to see part of it not much of it we don't show it everyone we're kind of subject here today that I get asked at my counter people call me about it all the time it's adjusting hydraulic lifters and there's a lot of bad information out there there's a lot of old-school type techniques that really aren't applicable to the way the job ought to be done I'm going to show you a foolproof way of adjusting your hydraulic lifters to where they're perfect every time and it doesn't matter why there's a Ford Chevy or Chrysler it's it's all the same one to another but first of all I just want to show you this is the project we're getting ready to put together shanté it without the cylinder heads on it we're gonna fold the heads on in just a minute that's that this is to me this is cool this is old-school stuff I grew up on this Oh small Journal 327 Chevy would have said a double hump heads it doesn't get any more original than that to me that's really neat for so many younger guys that's not interesting but few older guys you know what's not to like it's pretty neat so anyhow what we're going to do here is we're going to go ahead and we're gonna get the cylinder heads bolting on us get all of our training components ready to go and and then we'll be back in just a minute and we're going to show you exactly how to adjust the valves perfect first time every time no mistakes okay we're back got this 327 Chevy small Journal small-block steel crank rod bolts balanced it's got bored 30 over flat top pistons small comp cams camshaft and a pair of double hump heads installed old-school rebuild nothing fancy for you older guys should probably probably really like this for some of you younger guys it's really not quite as interesting cuz it's not real high-tech but it is real basic and that's why I picked it to do this particular project well we're going to show you here I'm going to demonstrate to you the best way there is Bar None on how to adjust hydraulic the house what I'm going to show you is going to it's going to save you a lot of time and it is a foolproof way of adjusting valves I've been in business since I was 17 years old rebuilding engines and as I go to a justice of the valves and using the methods that was taught back then I wound up having problems with them I'm gonna I'm gonna take up explain some some details on old wise tales on how to do these things and some old methods on how to do these things then I want you to completely totally forget and I'm gonna make your life easier old engines I got books lot of you guys might have learned this from your father's or your grandfather's or old things that you've read will tell you to take a hydraulic lifter and take a hydraulic lifter and soak it in oil and a lot of guys would soak these things overnight and they soak them in oil and then they take a push rod and they put it into the pump of the plunger and a plunger is spring-loaded and you pump it up and down until all the air pressure comes out of it but a lifter is a hydraulic check valve basically what happens is is when that oil comes in there and you push all that air out that plunger is no longer a spring-loaded it pumps up and it gets hard because the oil doesn't compress and then it's it comes hard and it's like a solid piece of metal when when you pumped up your lifters and you put them down inside the engine and then you go to adjust the rocker arm instead of you getting the depression of the push rod pushing down the little spring and the plunger inside the Lefter which is what you're shooting for around 3035 thousands worth of depression instead if you get in the lift of the press what you wind up happening is because the lifter is hard the rocker arm will push down when the valve instead so once you adjust once you've adjusted your rocker arm your valve is hanging open a little bit what happens is when you start it up that rocker arms hanging open a little bit this thing doesn't want to start or when it starts up it's shaking and shimmying and it's running hard we're going to do away with that any of you guys who has ever try to adjust valves and it doesn't matter whether you're talking Ford Chevy Christ or anything that has push rod driven with a set of with adjustable rocker arms on it if you've ever tried to do that with the engine running you got the valve cover off it's running it's blowing oil out the top of it it's dripping on your headers it's getting all over your nice car your fender wells and your loosen a rocker arm up till it gets to zero lashing the rocker arm starts tap it then you adjust it down just till it stops then you go a quarter of a turn the valve hangs open and the engine starts shaking it's missing sometimes they'll even stall out and you'll sit there and let it run and run and run until until it smooths out then you go quarter quarter quarter usually you know you you'll adjust them somewhere between a half a turn passes your latch to maybe a full turn past your lash that's a hard way to go through and adjust valves and like I said you make a mess doing so can even cause the fire things are hot it's easy to get burned there's another method and and that's also you can read about it on the comp cams website where you actually take a valve in exhaust valve when the exhaust valve just starts to open you can adjust the intake valve and then you can rotate the mode around until the intake valve goes all the way down and comes halfway back up then the exhaust valve is ready to adjust that's a lot to keep track of too because as you're sitting here looking at the motor it's easy to confuse which one you're looking at the other method that has been used for years is taking the engine and getting it on compression stroke getting your two valves up get two valves on what they call the rock or both that completely closed you adjust the valves on number one cylinder and then you go in firing order and then you'll take your take a wrench on the front of the motor and you got to have a point bouncing on there that's morphed in 90-degree increments it has to have a winter set up that sets the true top dead center which is important we'll talk about that in later date you know gels number one cylinder then you've rotated 90 degrees then you can do the next cylinder in sequence one Chevrolet you go 180 436 572 and your you'd use a four pad of the pen a power motor you're working on and every time you adjust one valve one cylinder you just number one you rotate the motor 90 degrees and you do number eight then you rotate 90 degrees and you go from 1/8 for just number four three six five seven to advance in 90 degrees at a time and you have to take the engine and rotate it around 360 degrees 90 at a time two full revolutions to get to all the cylinders to get to all eight cylinders and at the same time you have to pay attention to which one church Austin and if you're like me because I I was in a business since I was 17 years old and I was a one-man band for a long time I'd have to stop answer a telephone I have customers come in people stop in to see me all the time getting interrupted and then I come back I can't remember what cylinder I was doing and I got disgusted and I had to figure something out different so this is what I'm going to show you this is the easiest way it's a foolproof method you you will you will save so much time and effort if you don't understand what I'm talking about if you just do what I tell you it'll be perfect every time but I hope you understand what I'm trying to explain here when you adjust the valve the purpose of Justin the valve is to get the lifter as far down in the bore as they can go so that so that the rocker arm comes up and a valve is fully closed that is when the valve is ready to be adjusted that's when you're checking either if it was a solid lifter cam that's when you'd be putting a feeler gauge through there and checking for clearance or on a hydraulic case that's when we're going to adjust it down and get the valve I'll get the push rod pushed it into the lifter and set in the preload so that's what we're going to do here now we're gonna rotate the motor I got I've already got all the lifters in no lifters were put in oil that's very important they're all dry they're all spongy you can push on the lifter plunger they push up and down every one of these I can push them up and down as you can see that they're all spring-loaded that's the depression that we're going to adjust we're going to adjust I have all the push rods rocker arms in place everything's clean everything's close to adjusted okay so what we're going to do is we're gonna go through and we don't even have to keep track of whether it's on the intake stroke or the exhaust stroke or where the Pistons at or anything like that we got all 16 in here and what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through and I'm going to feel the push rod now if you can see some of these lifters are down and some of them are up there all in various stages now what we're shooting for is to get all the clearance between the lifter to push right on a rocker arm adjust it out of it when the valve is all the way down but what we're going to do is we're just going to go through like this and we're gonna adjust each and every one of these and I'm gonna rotate this push rod with my hand and there it is I tighten down just to where I can feel it makes contact that is at zero lash there I've taken all the clearance out of it and I'm going to do the very next one and I'm going to do every single one of them just like this just to where you can feel it starts to drag and at that point you know the clearance is gone nothing complicated about this now if if the phone rings or somebody comes to my counter and I gotta get up and walk away I don't have to I don't have to figure out where I was all I have to do is come back in and start feeling I'm okay that's Titus Titus tight it's tight and I can start I can start right over again I can start right where I left off and I haven't uh I haven't that the interruption did not cause me to start from from square one if you if you've ever had to do this for a living and you had to do it and you've had as many interruptions while you're trying to build a motor as I've had in the past you don't understand what a valuable lesson on teaching right now contact push right spins contact okay now now here here's to here's the the kicker if a lot of you guys know now that what's gonna happen when I rotate this motor I'm going to rotate this motor 90 degrees and when I rotate it 90 degrees some of these lifters are going to drop down in the lifter bore and when this one drops down this is one again it's going to get loose now other ones are on the side of the camshaft that's starting to come up so that when you adjust a rocker arm those are going to push the push rod farther up into it oh I'm put the push rod farther up to the rock horn and then it's going to get tightened and then we're going to go through and we're going to readjust the push rods only that come loose the ones that are already the ones that are being pushed up we don't have to adjust on them anymore okay crank shaft and I'm gonna rotate it 90 degrees and you know what this doesn't have to be exactly 9 you little this little that it ain't gonna make much of a difference because I'm gonna go around a couple of times and every time one of these push rods come loose I'm gonna tighten it up a little bit and that's all I have to do and I put my fingers up here that when it's still snug this one this one did not come loose whatsoever that one came loose close to that that that lifter was up and now it's going down so now we have all this clearance it's got to come out of there and what I'm effectively doing is I'm only adjusting them down to zero lash that means that means that the clearance is taken out of it I'm not actually when I get done adjusting these out here for I've turned this mode around a couple of revolutions and I keep looking for the push rods that come loose they're the only one just want to get adjusted when they can adjust it down they'll be adjusted down to zero lash and the push rod will not actually when the valve is closed the push rod will not actually be depressing the plunger and deliberate now what I mean by that is when the push rod when you put them on the lifters all the way down the push rods all the way down the rocker arm is up the valve is completely closed and that is where seem to see I didn't have to just none of these that's what there we go that one came way loose that's what zero lashes zero lash is when you were lifter is one the low lube of the camp some people call it some people some of you old-school guys a call it to heal it a camp that means it's when the bottom portion of the cam that that makes the valve closed everybody can really hope this makes sense but even if it doesn't make sense to you you know if you don't completely comprehend it trust me if you just follow the directions and this is really simple to do when you start it up it'll run perfect and and you know I'm not sitting here having to keep track of what stroke it's on one which valve whether it's in taper exhaust I'm just doing Thrones I can do it pretty quick doesn't matter of fact to stop and answer the phone see oh they're all good they may not be in a minute some of them some of them are some of them are going to be finished in a second and some of them are gonna keep getting loose but I'm going to take take at least two full revolutions of this motor I've already went a half of revolution I did two 90s and to do two full revolutions you got to do eight nine this right we're up for 360 degrees ninety-two time is one revolution four times nothing on happen getting close we're still going to go to full revolutions so if you gotta be thorough see back back back when I got in this business vans customized customers vans was a big thing and they had short shag carpet and a hole in them and captains chairs and that was a big deal back in the back in the late 70s and early mid 80s and you had to you had to have your rocker arms right because if you put something together and it tapped and you had to pull the the engine hatch off and try to adjust it with it running and you got oil squirting all over the place he'd ruin a guy's vehicle so I came up with this back when I probably was maybe 19 or 20 years old and I've been doing it ever since Sam Shoen showing you on the Chevrolet works the same on a big block or a small block six cylinders four cylinder anything but hydraulic adjustable valve it doesn't matter whether or not it's a roller camshaft it's all one in the same we finish getting all the rocker arms adjust adjust to the point that we're at zero lash i off-camera I finished the full rotation of taking the mood around more than two full times double-checking it you only have to go around to but I'm a little bit anal so I go completely around and adjusted everyone down to adjust me contact now remember if there's no oil inside any of the lifters we're going to dress that in just a moment so now every single one of them is adjusted down they're at zero lash only so now depend upon will cam you're running your own personal preference the type of lifter that you have you're going to decide how much lash how much prelims you're going to put on this I am going to use three quarters of a turn adjustment one each one of these on each one of these rock warms I wanted if I was adjusting with this running while it was running I'd loosen each one up to a clacks I take it back down just to its top and then I'd go a quarter of a turn quarter of a turn quarter of a turn for a total of three quarters return at a time and every time I do that it would open up the valve make the engine run rough coffin spit pop through the carburetor under some circumstances stall out and leak oil all over the place okay so now what I've done with it off I can't stress this enough the lifters are spongy there's no oil in the rocker arm is not going to open so now what I'm going to do is I'm going to start here as I'm facing it this is 12 o'clock there's a quarter there's a quarter there's a quarter I'm taking around a nine and I don't have to pay attention to intake or exhaust stroke in any single one it doesn't matter whether the whether the valve is up or the valve is down it's all running the thing if you don't understand that it's okay just trust me this is a foolproof way of doing this and when you start it up she'll run perfect white and smooth and all your friends will be impressed and the one gonna fit in here I'm telling you don't do it like this I'll bet the engine building engines for 37 years six days a week like I have yeah remember what I just said we're all the right arms were adjusted they were all adjusted and 0s now every single one of them is adjusted zero latch plus 3/4 of a turn and that 3/4 of a turn pushes the plunger of the lifter down approximately 30 to 35 thousand which is exactly what I want I'm not going to do this in front of you cause it's simple rock worms are done they're adjusted the next thing I do right now is I'm going to take five quarts of oil and I'm going to use I'm also going to use a zinc cddp zinc and phosphorous oil additive because this is a flat tappet camshaft you have to either with a flat tappet cam you either have to go back with what they call like a hotrod oil that's made for earlier model cars or you have to run an oil additive in them because the zinc and phosphorous been taken out of the new oil with my intake manifold off I'm going to just dump it all over my cam and lifters in this one or we get a real good bath as it enters its way down into the into the oil pan then what I'm going to do is I'm going to put a full pressure gage in here and I'm going to put a speed wrench into into the oil pump shaft with my old pump tool and I'm just going to rotate it by hand and we're going to just pump the oil up until every rocker arm bleeds the oil is going to go through the oil pump through the motor through the bare arms up through the cam through the oil galleys and the lifters and it's going to come up and it's going to come right out the push rod hole and as it comes out to push rod hole that you'll you'll do that until the air comes out of the lifters that's the same except better then taking a lifter and put it in a can of a wheel with a push rod and pumping it up yeah yeah just I'm up with it dry lubricate the outside your lifter adjust every one until it's zero lash which means the the lifter itself is either going to baited what's called the base circle or the heal the cam over the can that's all same terminology lifters all the way down you adjust it till you get all the all the last you out of it just a mall 3/4 return don't do all in it prime it up and once you prime it up and and all your letters are bleeding you got all the air out of it now those lifters are adjusted absolutely perfect and with all the oil going through them they will not start up they will not tap one time then all you have to do is get your distributor in right hit the sim a little bit of fuel and I promise you your modal your motor won't crank three times and it'll be it'll start off and run it I do it every single time I always bet my guys before before we start it up I always ask if anybody wants to bet me 50 bucks whether or not the engine will start up on a second or third crank and nobody ever takes it because they know I'd win I hope this has been helped to you this has been a big savings in my shop when I taught myself to do this many years ago I've never read it in a book I've never seen it on a video it may be out there I'm not the only person around who probably thought this way but I've never found it from anybody this was my main thought and I'm Ken Nelson from Ellison machine shop I'm your engine guy

Channel: Ellison's Machine Shop - Your Engine Guy

Views: 1,073,299

Rating: 4.8614044 out of 5

Keywords: hydraulic valve adjustment, engine, valve adjustment, hydraulic, chevy, ford, Your Engine Guy

Id: 5EGlb_VpTAw

Length: 22min 20sec (1340 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 11 2016