Hey guys. I'm about to pull the head on my 72 comet. It's got a 200 straight six with all stock gear. It's an original motor with only 60,000 miles, but it sat for years and a lot of my gaskets went bad. I think too much oil has leaked into my cylinders via bad valve stem seals, and so it's raised my compression from the oil build up. It's been pinging so i don't wanna drive it until i can get the head off and possibly get a valve job, or whatever is necessary. However, I've never re-installed a cylinder head and done a valve adjustment. I've got the general idea of getting rid of the slack from the pushrods and tightening it down an extra turn, but once that is done, how would i know if all the valves were operating properly? I don't have a mechanic's ear to tune them by sound. got any suggestions?
You don't "adjust" them. The Chilton manual states to get the cylinder to top dead center (both valves closed) and tighten until all play is out of the rocker. Then tighten one full turn more. So tighten until you can no longer spin the pushrod by hand, then crank down one full turn on the nut.
the only adjustable ones are the early 60's head ones your car should have these these don't even have a nut to adjust. Just tighten the shaft bolts front to rear 30-35ft lbs. That's what i did before converting to the adjustable rockers and never had a problem. To adjust the non adjustable ones(if you have the tapping sound), you need to get different size push-rods.
