I saw an ad in which a guy is selling a 49ish ford with a flatty. It said that is has adjustable lifters from a company called Johnson which has a screw type adjuster on it to set the valve clearences.

Has anyone ever heard of this?

I am confused because I thought the flattys don't have lifters, the valve stems rest right along the cam.

Now I could understand if the valves had a screw to adjust the overall length.


Chris

 

Hi Chenders,
Flat motors have lifters - what they don't have is pushrods because the valves aren't upside down over the pistons.

There have been adjustable lifters around for decades. If you are working on a high-performance flatty make sure you get a set of old adjustables. The new ones are heavier and thus slow things down.

Funny, that under stock spec conditions Henry's stock lifters are the lightest and best. Only in race engines where the cam is ground drastically or other 'improvements' are made do you even need adjustable lifters. Unless, of course, you just want to be able to say you got 'em.
Tim

 

Dad used to race flatty's years ago. Johnson adjustables were the ticket then, saving time between races. In fact I still have a set (maybe 2) of the Johnson adjusting wrenches. For a driver, I don't see a need for them.

 

You said you had possibly two johnson lifter wrenchs? I was woundering wether you still had them and wanted to sell them. I am in the process of a flatty resoration and can't seem to find any. I f so that would be great. Thanks 59INA40

 

The wrenches came in sets of two. The wrench acctually only keeps the lifter from spinning in the hole by bracing it with the lifter next to it. Since the lifters were in sets of two there is a wrench needed to connect it to a lifter to the right and on to the left.