Yea...being that they are mechanical by design, they will need periodic adjustment. Unlike hyd. lifters that have an "adjustment" of sorts, built in.
Not sure what the book says as for the milage, but my Lark (259) gets an exhaust valve adjustment about avery 3500 or so miles. The intakes stay pretty set as they are. It's the unleaded gas thing. The exhaust seat will erode along with the valve seat itself. So it's not a "wear" problem like it was back with lead in the gas. It's an erosion problem with the exhaust and a bit of a split with the intake valves. They (erosion vs wear) seem to almost cancel each other out. The erosion is a lot less on the intake valves.
The wear factor with.......the cam, lifter, push rod, rocker, valve tip isn't too bad after a few (6 or 7) thousand miles, but they shoud be checked after the first 500/750 miles on a new engine. Then after 3000 or so miles, untill a pattern can gained and an adjustment schedule can be set up.
Nice thing about Stude...they stamped the clearence ".016" on the engine side cover (on the flat head anyway), so it's easy to remember. The book does say a "loose .016".
The old blue (most of'em) "Motors" manuls were pretty good. "I" think they were the best of the non-factory manuals.
Last edited by
Mike on 2005 Jul 05 Tue 2:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.