anyone in STL that could help tune my SB?

Any time you have the upper end off any engine, you need to adjust the valves. It's not hard, I just did mine this weekend.

Les

You can do this job yourself with little more than a shop rag, 13mm wrench, feeler gauge, and a flathead screwdriver. Position the engine at TDC on cylinder #1, then pop the valve cover off on the passenger side. Stuck already? Fine. Pull the distributor cap, find the wire that goes to cylinder #1 and follow it back to the distributor cap. Which one is #1 you ask? Rear cylinder, passenger side. Turn the engine until the distributor rotor points at where the #1 wire resides on the cap, and then line up the crank pulley with the TDC mark. If your engine has been set up correctly, the #1 spark plug wire should be the one pointing more or less at the fan belt, and if you remove the distributor cap, rotor, and dust shield you should see a little 'mark' on the distributor body that is aligned with where the rotor is pointing.

Now that you have the valve cover off and you are at TDC on cylinder #1, check the rockers for a small amount of play between the valve and the tip of the adjuster screw. Grab the top of the rocker arm where the screw/nut are and pull/push to see if you can feel a tiny bit of play. No play? Then loosen it up. Start by loosening the 13mm jam nut, then use your screwdriver to turn the adjustment screw out a little bit. Can you feel some play now? As soon as you can feel some play put your .006" feeler gauge blade between the valve and the adjustment screw and then slowly turn the screw in while sliding the feeler gauge back and forth. As soon as you start to feel a little drag on the blade stop turning the screw. Get your 13mm wrench, and tighten up the nut while holding the adjuster screw steady with the screwdriver. Then check it again with the feeler gauge, you want to be able to put the blade between the tip of the adjustment screw and the valve and be able to move it with just a little drag.

Got it? Good. You have 7 more to do. When you finish with the 2 valves on cylinder #1, turn the engine BACKWARDS 180 degrees and you can do cylinder #2. Finish there and you put the passenger valve cover back on, turn the engine backwards another 180, and switch to the other side. Do #3 on the other side of the engine, then turn it backwards another 180 and do #4. When you are all done button it up and give it try, if the valves were tight you should see an improvement in how it runs.

Good luck with it.

Chris

*front*..... right side...(front is front)

Ahhh one of the first jobs I did to a Beetle engine that got me started working on VWs back in the early 70's.

You can do it and you will be pleased with the results!! ;-)

Chris gave a nice write-up too. Look around Speedy Jim's website

the 'Why won't my engine start?' section. This is how I see the engine looking down at the car, if it makes sense.

front of car

seats

cyl # 3 cyl #1 cyl #4 cyl #2 engine pulley

rear of car

" snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@r37g2000prm.googlegroups.com:

Chris - thanks for the indepth description on how to adjust them. I should have done it when it was 'on the ground' - but I was in a hurry and thought if I put them back (the rocker assemblies) where they came from - it wouldn't be an issue.

I know better than that. But...when hurried...

Luckily, mine has the aluminum degree wheel, so I can tell TDC easily.

Again, thanks!

Mitch :)

As a couple folks pointed out, I incorrectly identified where Cylinder #1 is located (I was bound to screw up somewhere...). If you are using the original VW tinware pieces, there is usually a cylinder number stamped on them that is clearly visible. Or you can look at the correctly drawn out text-graphic that Dave posted.

As an aside note, I had a bug come into the garage lately that was running very, very poorly. I checked dwell, timing, carb adjustments, vacuum advance, and while everything checked out it still wasn't right. So I pulled the valve covers and started checking there. All but one valve had zero lash at the adjuster. I reset the valve clearance and it ran like a top.

If you are diligent about checking the valves you can run your clearance a little tighter(.004").

Chris

Chris, your write-up was excellent... and for the newbies, it shows even the "old timers" can make a hasty mistake so double check everything... this group is great for providing accurate information(and good entertainment when the friendly banter starts...hehe)