Battery Cables 101

Know Your Battery Cable Sizes...

The biggest complaint that I hear from antique vehicle owners is " my antique vehicle will not start when its hot." This is one of the easiest thing to fix and involves one simple rule and a little common sense, so pay attention here!

First is the rule. The larger in physical diameter that your battery cable is... the more volume of current the battery cable will deliver from the battery to the starter with less electrical friction (resistance). In contrast the smaller in diameter that your battery cable is... the smaller the amount of current it will deliver to the starter from the battery, and the greater the electrical friction (resistance) will be.

My typical analogy is the difference between a fire hose and a garden hose. The water pressure (which is equal to the voltage) is the same on both hoses, but it is the extra volume of water carried by the fire hose that will put out the fire.

We know that the starter on your antique vehicle should not draw more than 150 amps when cranking over the engine. Your battery is at least 400 cranking amps even if you have the cheap one from Walmart, and if you buy the Optima from Fifth Avenue (with the 3 year free replacement warranty) you will have a thousand cranking amps!

So if your engine does not crank over when it is warm the problem is the current from the battery is not getting delivered to the starter...and what has that job...?

THE BATTERY CABLES !!

The next most important detail is the ground. If your battery ground cable is connected to the painted frame, greasy engine block, rusty water pump housing, or the painted firewall... how do you suppose the ground current will get back to the battery? You are expecting the current to travel through rubber motor mounts, paint, grease, and what ever else is blocking the path back to the battery. You can easily loose thirty percent of your starters cranking power from a bad ground path.

So..what you need to do... is replace both of your stock battery cables with one gauge cables (which is about cuban cigar size) and make the ground cable long enough so it goes directly from the battery to a starter mounting bolt or as close to the starter as you can get it. You want to be sure and clean off any paint or grease at the starter where the starter cable is bolted to the starter, because you want a clean metal to metal contact!

What you are doing is creating a direct electrical path between the starter and the battery so the current can't get lost between the battery and the starter.

I always put a toothed star washer under the bolt head at the starter ground to be sure there is a good solid battery ground cable connection.

Both Battery cables should be one gauge or larger.

OEM 6-volt battery cables were typically 4 gauge, and 12-volt battery cables were/are typically 6 gauge. In the lesson you learned at the beginning of this article I said bigger is better. You ALWAYS want use one gauge cables for BOTH the positive and the ground battery cables, and if it is a heavy electrical load application like an antique fire truck... I use 1/0 battery cables which are the same size as welding cables.

This is true for all 12-volt applications as well. Think about the electrical load of a firetruck with lights and sirens. Many fire trucks (even the newer 12-volt applications) will have dual batteries which means many more cranking amps available. In order to take advantage of that extra cranking power you need the 1/0 cables on hand to deliver the larger volume of current from the battery!

This is also true for drag race cars. How many drag cars have you seen with dual batteries in the trunk and the ground of both batteries is bolted to the floor of the trunk. That ground current from the trunk floor will need to travel to the starter then back to the battery. How is that supposed to happen with rubber body mounts, rubber engine mounts, paint, grease, and related blocking the current flow. Have the trunk floor undercoated or sprayed with trunk splatter does not help either.

We know that electricity is lazy and will take the path of least resistance so odds are about half or less of the cranking power from the two batteries in that drag car will actually get delivered to the starter which is why the car owner put two batteries in the trunk. Having a high performance motor only add to the starter's electrical load. Even with two batteries his car barely starts and the owner always wonders why?

Again...the simple way to look at this is you know that the starter should not draw more than 200 amps in a high performance engine application., You also know that a modern 12-volt battery will be at least 600 cranking amps. So two batteries results in 1200 cranking amps or more which is six times what your starter needs to crank over the engine. The weak link between those two batteries and the starter is the battery cables. You need one battery and a firehose instead of two batteries and a garden hose.

If that same car owner would run two one gauge cables to the front of the car and ground the battery ground to a starter mounting bolt he could eliminate one battery and the car would start way better than using the two batteries he has now.

It is common on high performance applications to have car owners treat the symptoms instead of fixing the problem. The problem is easy enough to identify....the engine is cranking slow because the current stored in the battery is NOT getting delivered to the starter! Most drag car owners will put a battery with 800 to a thousand cranking amps in their car with good intentions. With the wrong size battery cables and the poor battery to starter ground, that car owner cannot take advantage of his high performance battery.

The money making fix (for the aftermarket) is to sell the car owner a high torque or gear reduction starter for a couple hundred dollars, and or a high dollar electronic ignition setup for hotter spark, or a host of other goodies to fix the problem when in reality all that needs to happen is to install the correct size of battery cables.

The focus should be on fixing the problem NOT treating the symptoms. When the car owner figures that out his car will start better than it ever has... and his wallet will be a little fatter, because he did not buy the parts to treat the symptoms, which often times does not fix the problem.

Here are examples of the diameter of Battery Cables. Notice the difference  in diameter between the 4 gauge the 1 gauge cables. The smaller the number the larger in diameter the battery cable will be.

You can get custom battery cables made at most any full line auto parts store like Carquest or NAPA and they can build them any length with the ends you need to match your application. They can build them in the store while you wait. They do that for diesel truck and off road heavy equipment applications.

If you follow this simple lesson you will fix your hot start problem once and for all. While you are doing the battery cable upgrade it would be a good time to check out your starter to see what the brushes look like inside the starter and the bushings on either end of the armature.

The difference that battery cables and the proper ground makes to your starting will truly amaze you. It is hard to believe something this simple can make that much difference. And remember...you read it hear first!

And if you want to learn even more ways to fix your hot start problems and upgrade the performance of your antique vehicle's electrical system you can order a copy of my latest book entitled "Help My Car Wont Start When It's Hot! It can be found under technical publications in the "Parts" section of the website located at the top of the home page. It will be the best $15.00 you ever spent!

Airplanes and Hot Rod Tractors In Kansas

Joe and Howard Funk were born just 30 minutes apart on September 17, 1910 in Akron Ohio. Both brothers seemed to have a knack for all things mechanical, and both excelled in drafting and shop classes in school. The brothers took an immediate liking to flying machines, which were becoming quite popular in the Akron area during that time. Their folks however… had other ideas and set them up in the retail grocery business. That proved would be the financial platform the boys needed to purse their interest in aircraft.

The boys built their first flying aircraft during the summer of 1934. It looked much like a redesigned piper cub, a popular aircraft of the day. The engine the boys chose for their airplane was a Szekely three-cylinder radial engine. While inexpensive, the Szekely was not known for its reliability. Nevertheless, building a flying aircraft proved that the boys could design and build a flying aircraft from scratch.

The Szekely engine proved so unreliable it was quickly replaced with a highly modified water-cooled Ford four cylinder automotive engine, which was mounted in an inverted position. The Ford engine was modified by the Funk brothers themselves, and proved reliable enough to power the next 60 aircraft the brothers built.

In 1940 the brothers went to the Akron business community and asked for financial help. They could no longer work out of the back of their grocery store. The community responded raising $78,000 in capital, and the Akron Aircraft Company was incorporated. The Funk's aircraft manufacturing business was moved to an old abandoned four-story schoolhouse on the northwest corner of the Akron Airport.

Production slowed in the later part of 1940 when it was determined the modified Ford engines required an excessive amount of maintaince. The Funk brothers immediately switched to 75 hp Lycoming air-cooled engines. Unfortunately, they would soon discover that the Lycoming engines also had a design flaw one serious enough that it caused the assembly line to be completely shut down for a time… until the problem could be fixed. During the shut down one of the creditors got nervous, pulled his money out of the company, and forced the boys into bankruptcy.

Help came from two Kansas oil field suppliers. Bill and Raymond Jensen of Coffeyville Kansas. As a condition of the financial bailout, the Jensen's insisted that the Funk brothers move the aircraft company to Coffeyville.

The Funk brothers were anxious to resume building aircraft so they agreed. Production began in Coffeyville in November of 1941. Three planes were built and shipped to South America before the bombing of Pearl Harbor halted private aircraft production.

A Funk Airplane Built In Coffeyville Kansas

By 1945, the cost of a new Funk airplane had reached 3,700 dollars. Competition was keen from a host of newly formed civilian aircraft companies, and the government who was selling surplus aircraft for 200 dollars each. Another problem arose when the government took away the flight training money from the G. I. Bill. The returning soldiers from the war could no longer learn to fly free. The Funk brothers sold just a dozen planes in 1947. At the end of 1948 Funk aircraft production ceased for good.

After the Funk brothers found out they could no longer sell airplanes, they turned their efforts to farm tractors. In 1948, Ford tractor owners were looking for more horsepower. A standard Ford tractor was 30 horsepower and could pull only a two-bottom plow.

An Example OF A Funk 6 Cylinder Conversion

The Funk brothers began fitting the Ford tractors with six cylinder Ford industrial engines that produced 95 horsepower, more than three times the horsepower of the original 4 cylinder engine. It was soon after, that the Brothers began offering tractor conversions using the 100 Horsepower Flathead Ford V8's. Now a farmer could easily pull a three-bottom plow.

A Funk Flathead Ford Engine Conversion

The Funk brothers ran ads in farm journals with coupons. The ads advised that if a farmer wanted a new tractor converted, he could take the coupon to his local Ford tractor dealer and have the dealer call the number in the advertisement. Ford soon found out about the conversions and immediately sent memos to all of their Ford tractor dealers saying, if the conversion was performed to immediately tear up the factory warranty.

In fact, Ford was preparing to sue the Funk brothers when several of the conversions developed rear end failures. Further testing showed that the Ford rear ends were defective from the factory. A compromise was worked out and Ford dealers became authorized to make the conversions at the dealerships.

The kits were ordered from the Funk Aircraft Company with either the 100 hp Flathead Ford V8's or the Industrial 6 cylinder engines. The original tractor 4 cylinder engine was removed and sent back to Ford in the same shipping crate as the conversion kit came in. Ford then sold the engines as replacement engines for industrial applications with full factory warranty.

The Funk brothers stopped offering conversion kits about 1953 and the company closed soon after. In later years, the Funk conversion tractors were held in low regard because the production had stopped and repair parts were difficult to find. Used Funk tractors became so difficult to sell that many were converted back to the original four cylinder engines. A fire in the Funk building in the early 1960's destroyed the records of the Funk Company. So nobody knows for sure how many tractor conversion kits were sold. It appears that the Ford V8 was the most popular conversion although in reality, there was not much horsepower difference between the two engines.

Today, the original Funk Conversion tractors are highly collectible; especially those with the Flathead Ford V8's installed. So popular in fact that you can again buy a conversion kit (patterned after the Funk kit) to put a Flathead Ford V8 into a Ford N series tractor. If you own a few acres in the country what could be more fun than a tractor / mower combination powered by a Flathead Ford V8? Add a pair of Fenton Headers along with a pair of Smithys… and mowing will never be the same.

Oh...and one last thing, in case you were wondering if a Lincoln V12 engine would work with the Funk conversion kit, the answer is yes. It worked in part because the back of the Ford V8 engine, and the back of the Lincoln V12 engine are the same, so the Funk conversion kit would also work with the Lincoln V12.

Of course things like the frame, steering rods, the hood, and a host of other things all had to be lengthened much more than with the V8 engine conversion, which would be no small task.  The Funk Company did not offer a Lincoln V12 conversion, but if they did... this is what it might look like. The guy who built this one says his tractor will run 60 plus mph. Wonder how he know that...? Scary thought.

I remember seeing a few of the Funk tractors around when I was in grade school and most of those got converted back to stock. Some of the local tractor dealers even refused to take them in on trade. Had I been a little older I would have bought one and had some fun.

This story has appeared in Engine Builder Magazine and a host of other automotive publications. I continue to write monthly columns for various automotive publications highlighting automotive history. I will share some of the more popular stories here...stay tuned!

Chrysler Put A Hemi In What...?

So…you think you know your Chrysler history… and you can name every application Chrysler ever put a Hemi engine into. Well I got one I bet you never heard of. Chrysler like most automotive companies secured contracts during World War II to build tanks, airplanes, as well as guns and ammunition. Chrysler was no different than all the rest with one exception, the air raid siren. Chrysler earned the distinction during the war years of building the loudest most powerful warning device ever built. No company before or since has built anything like it.

Development of what would be later became known as the Chrysler Air Raid siren was started in January 1942. First attempts were built at the request of the Office of Civil Defense in Washington D.C.

The E.D.Bullard Company of San Francisco designed an engine driven centrifugal siren and submitted it for testing and certification. Chrysler got involved in part because the centrifugal engine driven siren offered by the Dullard company used their Flathead six-cylinder engine to power the siren. Despite extensive tests and modifications, the Bullard-design centrifugal siren could not produce the necessary volume of sound.

In earlier research, the Office of Civil Defense in Washington D. C. had determined that a minimum of 120 to 140 decibels of sound pressure at 100 feet, was the minimum requirement output for a warning siren. With the failure of the Bullard Company siren to meet the specifications, Chrysler was invited to a meeting in Washington D C, along with a few of the sound engineers from Bell Laboratories, to work on the problem and come up with a solution.

With Harry Fletcher of Bell Labs in charge, the engineers at Bell Labs went to work. This resulted a few months later, in the introduction of "Big Bertha" a huge centrifugal engine driven siren one of the largest ever built up to that time. The Bell Labs siren and was capable of 134 decibels of sound at a range of 100 feet. Now that the Bell siren design was proven successful, the Bell engineers drew up a series of specifications, using "Big Bertha" as a guideline, Chrysler was then awarded a contract to build the Bell designed and engineered air raid warning sirens.

The first version became known as the Chrysler-Bell Victory Siren. This first, siren, had a somewhat crude unrefined appearance, Despite its looks, it became certified by the Office of Civil Defense in March of 1942. One hundred twenty of these "Victory Sirens" were sold to 28 different cities among them New York City who bought (10) copies. The city of Detroit bought (20), as did the city of Chicago.

The Victory sirens sold for the tidy sum of $3,760 each in 1942 wartime dollars and were powered by a Chrysler straight -eight 324 cubic-inch engine that was rated at 140 HP. The government test results showed this siren with its two-stage blower was capable of producing a sound output of 134 decibels at a frequency of 430 Hz at a distance of 100 feet.

One of the problems with the early sirens is that the sound they produced was directional. To solve that problem the sirens were fitted onto a belt driven turntable that would rotate a full 360 degrees at 1.5 revolutions a minute. An operator was required to sit on a tractor type seat and control the operation of the siren and the direction of rotation, a job for which I am sure their were not many volunteers.

The second design of this siren built by Chrysler was much more refined than the first. Improvements in design also made the assembly of the sirens easier, faster, and less expensive. In the second design, the Bell name was dropped, and the sirens simply became known as the Chrysler Air Raid Siren.

The second design used the same 140 HP engine as the first design and the sound output was said to be the same. The second series was built from the middle 1940's up through 1951.

In 1952, a final and more advanced model was introduced. Along with a few refinements was the addition of Chrysler's new 331 cubic-inch, Hemi-Head V8, which produced 180 HP at 4600 rpms.

The latest design proved to be the best ever. It was by far the loudest at 138 decibels at a distance of one hundred feet at a range of 460 Hz. Best of all it was controlled remotely so no operator was needed to ride the siren and run the controls.

To put this Hemi powered air raid siren's output loudness into perspective the telephone in your shop rings at 80db while a city police car or ambulance measures120db at a distance of ten feet. Now imagine 138db at a distance of 100 feet… Yeeoooow!!

 This design became the most popular and a couple of hundred were sold to larger cities across the United States. Besides their tour of duty for World War II, many of the sirens were again used during the cold war when the threat of nuclear war became very real in the 1960's.

While no examples of the first two siren designs are known to have survived, a few of the third design (which was built up through 1957) have survived.

The Siren Harry Barry bought and restored that was once located near the school where he grew up.

Harry Barry grew up in Pittsburgh Pa. area during the 1950's and he clearly remembered there was one of the third generation Chrysler sirens near his school. It was tested each month and Harry remembers that very loud distinctive sound.

In later years Harry became interested in sirens (no doubt influenced by his early childhood), and went back to see if the siren was still there next to his old school. It was and he bought it. He then went to work and restored it. He tracked down and bought one more, and knows the whereabouts of  (6), more.

So the next time you are attending a car show and see a 1957 Chrysler cruising by... you may want to take a moment, and reflect on what might have been. Instead of that Hemi engine rumbling under the hood of that Chrysler, it could have ended up in service to our country.

Like Harry I also have an interest in and collect sirens. I have about 3 dozen sirens in my collection of all different shapes and sizes, the oldest one being from about 1926.

I do not have a siren in my collection as big as the one Harry has bought and restored but I can appreciate his efforts to track down and restore one of that size. The largest one I have ever owned was the one that was on top of our City Hall building when I was growing up. It was an old air raid siren from World War II. After the war it was used by the fire department. When the local fire department got a fire alarm they would turn on that siren to let all of the volunteers know of the alarm and they were to report to the fire station immediately. You could literally hear that siren for miles around so everybody got the message, and they often said it would wake the dead.

Later... when modern technology came along all the fireman got hand help radios and pagers so they no longer used the old siren. When it came time to repair the city hall roof after a hail storm the city decided the old siren needed to go away. They took sealed bids and I was the winner.

Soon after I learned that it ran on 3 phase 5 hp electric motor.  I befriended one of the local city public utility workers and we tried it out on a Sunday afternoon.

The World War II Siren from City Hall all 280 pounds worth.  It is nearly five feet across and the rain cap on top looks like an army helmet from back in the day.

I knew the siren was loud on the top of city hall but when it was on the ground sitting on top of my car trailer in the alley... it gave new meaning to loud. After a couple of times,  I had my fun, and the neighbors had made it clear they were not impressed with my siren. I eventually sold it to a small community in Oklahoma who wanted to use it as a tornado siren, a job it was clearly up to. With a population of barely 800 residents they clearly did not have much of a budget for storm warning devices, although like Kansas, they clearly had the need for one.

So in the end... I had my fun, got my money back, and there is a small town in Oklahoma who can now warn their residents of an approaching tornado. I have stopped in that small town a couple of times over the years to look at my siren perched on top of their City Hall building. I just smile to myself... it is in a good place and my neighbors couldn't be more pleased.

And I am still on the lookout for sirens to add to my collection. I am a little more selective now and leave the full sized ones alone.

Adjusting Lifters The Correct Way

Adjusting lifters used to be a common practice when our antique vehicles were new. It's true a few engines came with hydraulic lifters that did not need adjusting but for the most part all engines and especially performance engines came with solid lifters that required adjusting on a regular basis. Today...adjusting lifters has almost become a lost art.

The accuracy of your lifter adjustment can have a huge effect not only on the performance of the engine but also on the overall life of the engine. If you read the shop manuals of the day they will explain how to adjust lifters resulting in an average job. The final result will be "close enough" and be within factory specifications for the average line mechanic who has to balance the time allotted according to the "Flat Rate" manual, and the end result.

But what if there was a way to adjust lifters that was extremely accurate yet amazingly simple, the way the cam grinders do it and the way professional drag racers do it, to gain any advantage over the competition. Even in our antique vehicle engines we can do it to get the maximum performance from our engines. We would get the full horsepower and torque that was designed into our engines from the factory. 

I want to thank customer and friend Mike Ready who shared this technique that he learned from his father who was a heavy duty truck diesel mechanic. Mike's father learned this technique as a way to time the diesel fuel injectors on diesel engines. He then determined it would also work as a way to accurately adjust valve lifters. He was correct and lucky for us he taught his son Mike how to do it and Mike has agreed to share it with us.

I had seen this done by one of the local mechanics growing up who raced stock cars on a dirt track back in the 1970's, so I know this works. The local mechanic tried to explain it to me then... but I confess I did not pay much attention, I had other priorities. So thanks to Mike... who did pay attention to his father...we can follow along and learn how to adjust lifters accurately. You will be surprised at the difference it makes.

"TEETER AND ADJUST" LIFTER / TAPPET ADJUSTMENT METHOD taught to me by my dad 53 years ago.  By Mike Ready

For want of a name for this procedure I call it "Teeter and Adjust". When I refer to the word "Teeter" this is what I mean by this word. When you are looking at a pair of lifters / tappets that are in the overlap phase we want to rock the crank back and forth watching for both of the tops of these lifters / tappets to be the same exact height. This is one of the critical parts of this procedure. 

Finding this spot on the cam sets the lifters / tappets on the cam lobes of the opposite cylinder in the firing order for adjusting / setting the clearance. The purpose of this is to get these lifters / tappets on that opposite cylinder as close to the center line on the base circle of the cam, which is opposite of the nose of the cam lobe on that lobe to adjust / set the clearance.

The "Teetered" lifters / tappets will be up in the open position in the "overlap" position. There for, the opposite cylinder lifters / tappets will be in the down closed position. I hope this is clear as understanding this is key to doing this right.

The procedure is done like this;

1 – Find and write down the firing order of the engine.

2 – Draw a line dividing this firing order in to 2 groups of numbers (for example; a 4 cylinder would have 2 numbers on each side of the line, 6 will have 3 on each side, 8 will have 4 on each side of the line and so on for engines with more cylinders.

3 – Position cylinder number 1 on top dead center. Accuracy is important you want to be at exactly top dead center!

4 – Look at the first number after the line on the RIGHT group of numbers and see what cylinder that is.

5 – Look at that cylinder’s lifters / tappets and by rocking the crank back and forth get each lifter / tappet exactly the same height on their top edge of the lifter / tappet. These will be in the open "overlap" position on those lobes.

6 – At this point in this procedure, the lifters / tappets on the opposite cylinder (in this case number 1) are exactly on the base circle and as close to the center line of that cam lobe as possible. It is now time to set that clearance of those 2 lifters / tappets (on number 1). 

These will be the numbers on the LEFT side of the line.

All you have to do now is look at the next cylinder in the firing order and find its opposite cylinder in the firing order - pair of lifters / tappets (the RIGHT group) and with a very little turn of the crank "Teeter" them to get them at the same equal height. Then adjust the lifter / tappets clearances of that cylinder opposite cylinder in the firing order just after number 1 in the LEFT group. 

Move on down the line of the firing order numbers "Teetering & Adjusting" until you get to the end of the "Teetering" lifters (right of line). 

At this point switch over to the cylinders (which will be on the LEFT of the line dividing your firing order into 2 groups) and "Teeter" these cylinder numbers lifters / tappets and adjusting their opposite cylinder that are on the Right of the line.

Once you have finished this group of cylinders you are all done.

I believe it requires only 2 complete turns of the crankshaft to complete this "Teeter & Adjust" procedure.

Now... why is this considered the best way to set the cam lifters / tappets for adjusting the clearances?

It positions the lifters / tappets on equal sides of the center line of the base circle of the cam lobe. Then when the clearance is adjusted / set it is VERY accurately set. Little to no chance for error and it is easy and a lot less work to do.

In the 50 years I have used dad’s method I have taught many mechanics how to use this method. It works on any even multiple cylinder engines. Be it a 4 cylinder to any number of even numbered cylinders. Flathead, "L" head, over head valve, over head cam.

In the 50 years of doing mechanic work on all sorts of vehicles, tractors, heavy equipment, and in 15 years of building racing car engines I have only found a very few who knew this method. I have yet to find it described in a book.

In all these years I have found, 2 pals that own a cam grinding company who each race cars, a few on race teams, and several diesel engine mechanics that knew and used this method.

Here is a "real life" example:

Using the firing order of a Model A Ford 4 cylinder engine 1243.

Write down the firing order & draw a line dividing this into 2 groups.

 1 2 / 4 3

 Start by putting #1 on TDC

 Look at # 4’s lifters & teeter them into equal height

 Adjust # 1’s lifters

 Look at # 3’s lifters & teeter them into equal height

 Adjust # 2’s lifters

At this point all cylinders on the left side of the line are adjusted & done. Now focus on the group for teetering that is on the LEFT side, the group that you just adjusted.

Look at # 1’s lifters & teeter them into equal height

Adjust # 4’s lifters
Look at # 2’s lifters & teeter them into equal height
Adjust # 3’s lifters ---- Now you are all done

Note From Randy - You can use a flat blade feeler gauge like this one but a stepped feeler gauge works better. Make sure when you are measuring clearances that you are touching both surfaces so you get an accurate reading.

                  

Here are two examples of stepped feeler gauges. The set on the left
is like the ones like I grew up with. The ones on the right are the modern ones and a little easier to work with as you are only controlling one stepped blade with a handle attached. You can buy this set from your local auto parts store, it is Lisle part number 68050.  Thanks Randy

 Mike continues...you need no special tools for finding the correct spot to adjust the lifters. Also, you don’t jump around from one cylinder to another adjusting one lifter at a time. Instead you just follow the firing order & adjust BOTH lifters at the same time.

All you need to complete this job is: paper, pin/pencil, a stepped feeler gauge set, and the proper sized wrench.

Randy's final comments....These instructions are pretty simple to follow and in the end it will result in less work and a more accurate job, as compared to adjusting lifters the conventional way one at a time. That should put a smile on your face! I want to again thank Mike for sharing his knowledge.

This is a perfect example of learning from the previous generation and then passing it along to the younger generation. Everyone benefits especially the younger generation who is now able to own drive and maintain an antique vehicle. It makes driving an owning an antique vehicle more enjoyable when you know how things work and how to do the basic maintaince. That builds pride of ownership and you can't get that out of any book!