1bad6t
Well-known member
Just bought a sweet looking 63 Futura hardtop with a 170 build date of 1/22/63. When I went to adjust the noisy valves I couldn't get the feeler gauge under the rocker. I also noticed there's not much more adjustment, if any, left on the rocker arms. When I push down on the wrench to get a better grip to loosen the adjustment, the pushrod went down about half inch. I removed the spring and pushrod and I can see a hydraulic lifter also notice the valve tips were almost gone. I have read that the 63's were solid lifters and sometime in 64 they saw the hydraulic lifters. I'm thinking someone in the past saw the adjustable rocker arm and thought they were working with solid lifters is the reason the valves were noisy and stem tips were worn or maybe someone replaced the lifters with hydraulic lifters causing the pushrods to be too short and rocker arm hammering the valve stem tips. I guess the question is what do you think is going on? Did 63.5 170's have solid or hydraulic lifters? Will an engine run with the wrong lifters? Or are we looking at what happens when the valve train is just worn out. To make my day worse...I found out that I can turn the engine with the fan blade with the rocker arm shaft removed and all spark plugs installed.