223 Valve adjust.

hey everyone, i'm new to this forum, I have a 62 f-100 long "wrong" bed with a 223 and a 4 speed, all original... I got the truck last summer and have slowly been working on it, replacing old worn out parts... today I adjusted the valves, the valves weren't very noisy before, but I just rebuilt the ignition system and carb, as well as surfacing the manifolds and putting all new gaskets, so why not adjust the valves... So on my oil bath filter, it says that both intake and exhaust lash should be .019 hot, so I use the same rule of thumb I've always heard, and since my engine was cold I added 2 thousands, for .021. I adjust all the valves, and it starts and all is well... until I drive it, then the valves get very noisy, I thought I had an exhaust leak because the clicking was so noisy... so, off comes the valve cover and I adjust all the valves down to .019, even hot the valve lash was still .021 from the first adjustment... I thought, "that's weird, usually the valves tighten a couple of thou when it gets hot, which it was... So I adjust all the valves again, this time with the engine hot, making sure each one was at .019... I start it with no valve cover this time to make sure I don't have a noise, and everything sounds great, until opened the throttle a couple of times, and then back to more clicking noise...

2 questions:

1: is .019 what I should be adjusting the HOT valves to?

2: has anyone had such an experience when adjusting the valves on their 223?

I'm waking up first thing tomorrow morning to once again take the valve cover off and see what the hell is going on. the most confusing part to me is that it would idle perfectly fine, but they would get noisy after the engine went a little faster and the noise never goes away, and this is after I've driven the truck around for the past few months with no valve adjustment and relatively no noise.

thanks for the help!

1. If that's what it says on the air cleaner, then that's what I'd use. The gap sounds correct, IIRC.

2. I can think of 2 things.
a. Adjustment procedure: Did you adjust running or shut off. If off, how did you verify the cam was on the bottom of the lobe?
b. It's possible one of the nuts is no longer holding adjustment. They do wear with age, get loose in the rocker arm, and no longer will hold a setting. This usually happens right after an adjustment. I'm not certain if just replacing the adjuster will correct it, you may have to replace the rocker arm too. I suppose you could take a small center punch and stake the adjuster in place once set to get you by for a while.

Good Luck with it.

Lou Manglass

thanks for the response lou..

I did adjust shut off, adjusting the exhaust when the intake was just finishing and adjusting the intake when the exhaust was just starting. If I had adjusted it with out it being on the bottom of the lobe then it would of clicked from the first revolution... right?

I seem to recall that the .019" lash measurement was specified cold in my service manual.

"If I had adjusted it with out it being on the bottom of the lobe then it would of clicked from the first revolution... right?"

That's correct, I just thought I'd throw it out there to be sure. It sounds like an adjuster backed off or, worse, a lobe started to go flat after the adjustment. Is it running okay other than the tapping noise? Does that noise always come from the same cylinder?

Lou Manglass