Piston-to-valve clearance checking with hyd lifters
 

Ok, I haven't been able to locate any checking springs locally, so will need to use regular valve springs. Also, I haven't been able to purchase a couple of solid lifters (I'm in England, remember). So, I need to work with what I have. The way I see it, I have 2 possible options...

1. Turn a couple of my old hyd lifters into solids by dismantling them and shimming them with washers?

2. Leave the lifters alone, but adjust my rocker arms with enough 'pre-load' to totally bottom-out the lifter plunger before checking P-to-V clearance?

Thoughts? Tips?

Thanks.

1. Get some springs from the hardware store that fit in there and are sufficient to hold the valves in a closed position, regular springs can be too stiff for the strength of a checking pushrod and will bend it enough to give distorted measurements.

2. Filling up an old lifter will suffice for your measurements. You don't want to preload the lifter to collapse it because what's needed is to discover the length of push rod that results in the proper sweep of the rocker tip on the valve stem. Collapsing the lifter will give a false reading.

Bogie