352 hydraulic lifters valve lash adjustment

[barrysmith]

Hello everyone, got the oil pumping again, oil drive shaft was floating.

Now time to set valve lash.

Can someone tell me the procedure for adjusting the lash on a hydrualic lifter with non adjustable rockers.

I started the car for a couple of min. but it ran very bad and fell dead, I am assuming it is bad or incorrect valve lash.

Timing is good and I have a rebuilt holly 750 on it.

I have read you have to set preload and then the lash.

I read the instructions online for the 58, but I beleive it is for adjustable rockers.

Thanks,
Barry

[byersmtrco]

I don't think there is an individual adjustment. Torque the rkr/arm shafts down and you're done. It's not like a Chevy where you can adjust each indiv rocker arm. If it's like my 440 Mopar, the lifters had to "pump up" after I had changed them. It made noise for a few seconds.
Better double chk the service manual. Any that covers FE motors will have a section on that.

[JohnG]

In Christ's book on FE motors he says it might take several minutes for the lifters to pump up and cease making noise. In my case it took about a half minute or so. The important thing to know is that some brief noise is part of the deal and you don't have to panic and think some part of your motor is getting ruined.

If you want , I can find the section and quote it.

Basically - correct me if I am wrong here - the hydraulic lifter is doing the adjusting for us.

john

[protourbird]

It can be said that the lifter is doing the adjusting to a degree. Primarily what it is doing is absorbing shock to the push rod and valve and eliminating the need to adjust the valve lash on a reoccurring basis. It still needs a predetermined amount of travel so it can fully open the valves without collapsing. It compresses until the oil basically becomes a solid. The cam specs are designed to compensate for the lifter compression. If the compression is not proper then the cam cannot function to its design specs and you also raise the possibility (though slight) of coil bind or a valve striking a piston. I have always used adjustable rockers on my FE motors but in some cases you can use shims or a specific torque spec to predetermine the lash which should be at 0. Even when using roller rockers when my builder installed the hydraulic roller cam in the new engine I built he had to assemble everything and use an adjustable push rod to determine the desired length then relay that information back to Crane and they made the push rods to fit. Hopefully someone will find you the proper procedure for the non adjustable setup.

[barrysmith]

I thought as much, the push rods need to be adjusted to match the lifter load.

The lifters that were in it looked kinda solid to me, but was told they were hydraulic, non the less they did not have near the preload thease have.

I submitted a post about them with a photo and titled "1959 352 lifters "

I quess I stated that correct.

The car actually ran fine before the lifters filled with oil, it was just noisy, once they filled and silenced, it shutterd for a about ten secounds and died, it will start and repeat the process, starts good , after a couple of seconds runs ruff and then falls dead.

[Guest]

Question

did you measure the lifters and the pushrods that you installed against the ones you removes---plus total length

in the 1959 Ford Thunderbird Shop Manual page 1-9 and 1-10 it shows how to properly measure the lift you are getting and shos the proper lift in inches that it should be
it also give you the color of the rods you should be using along with their varience

"If the plunger travel is excessive, the lifter pump-up time will be prolonged resulting in excessive valve train noise following engine start-up. If the travel is insufficient to compensate for normal expansion of the valve operating components , the valve would not be permitted to seat properly resulting in a rough engine and/or premature valve failure" this is from page 1-10, first collom, third paragraph

If you need a copy of these pages send me your email and I ll scan them and send them to you

[barrysmith]

I did measure the total distance from the bottom of lifter and tip of push rod and they were identical, BUT the lifter that was in it did not allow for any collapse, I was told it does collaps about 1 - 2 thousandths, nothing close to the new type lifters.

[Guest]

push rod colors

acording to the shop manual there are different color pushrods for the different clearences--what color were yours

"0.060-inch shorter push rod (color code white) or a 0.060-inch longer pushrod (color coded yellow) is avaiable for service to provide a means of compensating for the dimensional changes in the valve mechanism. Valve stem to valve clearance should be 0.078-0.218 inches (352engine) or 0.126-0.226 inch (430 engine) with the hydralic lifter completely collapsed." that is according to the shop manual page1-9 third collom second paragraph.

does this help you any ?

When you had the eng apart did you have the valves replaced

[barrysmith]

Thanks, Mintreen.
The push rods are not colored, 1 exhuast valve was replaced, and the exhuast seats were replaced with harden seats, new guides, and springs on all and new seals.

They were all reground to 30 or 35 degrees, not exactly sure the builder did mention that he hadonly seen that on a 390 gt and cobra jet head.

Thanks for the lash distance, will have to replace rods to get to that measurement with the lifters collapsed.

That info HELPED a great deal, was not sure if I neede to measure with the lifter collapsed.

[barrysmith]

Mintgreen, does it tell you how to perform the procedure?

#1 piston TDC, as intake compleatly closes etc.

I sent you my email to oyur private message account on here , did you get it?

Thanks

[Guest]

Valves

Barry

OK after consulting this morning with some real gear heads --they have come up with some interesting speculations on you eng---

1. when the seats were installed they were not put in to the exact depth as the old valve seats (i am told this is very common) that will make the lifters very hard to set correctly ----

2. there are ajustable push rods--(racers use them) that can be bought for the eng that way no mater how the seats were installed you can still dile the eng in.

now as for setting the push rods Ill quote from the book
"rotate the crankshaft until No1 piston is on T.D.C. an the end of the compression stroke. With the No.1 piston on T.D.C., check the following valves
No. 1 intake No. 1 exhaust
No. 3 intake No. 4 exhaust
No. 7 intake No. 5 exhaust
No. 8 intake No. 8 exhaust

Position No 6 piston on T.D.C. and check the following valves
No. 2 intake No. 2 exhaust
No. 4 intake No. 3 exhaust
No. 5 intake No. 6 exhaust
No. 6 intake No. 7 exhaust

Upon replacement of a valve push rod and/or valve rocker arm shaft assembly, the engine should not be cranked or rotated until the hydraulic lifters have had an opportunity to leak down to their normal operationg position. the leak down rate can e accelerated by using the tool shown in figure 2 ( ford tool #T58P-6565-A) on the rocker arm, apply pressure in a direction to collapse the lifter."


I do hope this helps--- if you need to reach me just call or email me ---- 562-537-2964 or EMAILFORLIGHTS@YAHOO.COM

[barrysmith]

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU !!!

That gives me a lot of good info. to help resolve my problem.

[Guest]

Glad to help anyone here -- Ray always comes through for the information I need!

[Hawkrod]

Hello everyone, got the oil pumping again, oil drive shaft was floating.

Now time to set valve lash.

Can someone tell me the procedure for adjusting the lash on a hydrualic lifter with non adjustable rockers.

I started the car for a couple of min. but it ran very bad and fell dead, I am assuming it is bad or incorrect valve lash.

Timing is good and I have a rebuilt holly 750 on it.

I have read you have to set preload and then the lash.

I read the instructions online for the 58, but I beleive it is for adjustable rockers.

Thanks,
Barry

I was gone for the weekend so just saw this, are you saying the oil pump push rod was not in the hole? I am not sure what you mean by floating. As far as the new lifters pumping up. Hydraulic lifters do have an operating range. Modern ones are not as critical as the old ones due to the way they operate but it may well be that your new lifters require a very different pushrod length. Unfortunately Ford did play with push rod length a little bit, 1958-64 should be 9.58 for most, 1964-1968 are 9.62 and 1968-1976 are 9.59. Because replacement lifters are all the newer design a 9.58 or 9.59 lifter should work but a 9.62 will probably not. You may simply have the wrong ones by a bunch. A good machine shop would have measured the valve stem installed height and adjusted it when doing the valve job but as mentioned that could be an issue as well. Hawkrod

[barrysmith]

Spoke with the machine shop, they said all valves are the same height.
Installed the exhaust seats first and then ground the intake to match.

I read a couple of places that if you remove the rocker arm assembly, mark the end of the rocker tappet with a marks allot real good, reinstall and turn over the engine a couple of times, then remove assemblies and look at the wear pattern on valve stems.

If it is inward toward the intake then the rods are to short, outward towards the exhaust then to long, it should be in the middle with no more than .080 mark.

Any one else tried this?

I am having difficulties getting the lifter to collapse to check the air gap as instructed.

As far as the oil pump drive shaft, it came out with the distributor after last removal.