VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1949-1954 Valve Timeing

Mr. Mack:
Last fall I had to have a valve job on my 50 Chevy due to a burnt exhaust valve at only 47,000 miles ( and NO GM warranty). Am I correct at thinking that the valves need to be adjusted after running the car for 50 miles? The shop that did the valve job also adjusted the valves at that time, reading in the Shop Manual it states that the engine should be HOT with the oil at a constent temp. Well when the man adjusted the valves I was there and the engine was not HOT.
Question # 2: If I do need to adjust these valves now or at a later date, what is the correct procedure to do the valve adjustment.The Shop Manual only refers to the engine being hot and what the intake and exhaust valve settings need to be.

A pretty simple but exasperating job. Yes the engine must be warm and more importantly the valve stems and the rockers them selves must be up to operating temperature, the temperature guage may show that the car is warm but the oil, being fed to the rockers must be warm enough to get all the parts to operating temps. A screwdriver with a good wide blade, the proper size box end wrench, are needed. Start with number one, and a feeler guage of the proper thickness. Go from one exhaust to the next and then to the intakes. You do this with the engine running. If you want to you can set them with the engine shut down, find TDC on #1 (both rocker arms will be free) set to the proper clearance and work on down the line. After setting run the engine warm it up again and then go through all the valves with the feeler guage. There are arguments for and against but I set mine about 0.002 looser than the manual states as I do a lot of highway running. They are a little noisy but you can live with it. When I bought my 38 the previous owner did not like the valve noise and had them set at the lower end of the range, they were quiet but my 18 year old heavy foot took the exhaust valves out in about a week. As an old mechanic once told me he would rather hear them than smell them!

Glyn: Thanks for the information on the valves, thanks to you every thing turned out OK. Yes you are right it's something a person wouldn't want to do on a daily basis. Also I had to open up the gap on all intake and exhaust valves they were set below the lowest limit recomended in the Shop Manual, I have a little noise but it seems to have more power now. Thanks again.