Farmall B-clarification needed

"If the lift rod seems straight you can put it back in. It just drops into place. Before putting the rocker back over it, take a SMALL hammer and tap smartly without whacking on top of the valve and spring. Just enough to see if you can get ANY movement down and back up. If it doesn't move, or the hammer feels like it's hitting the head of a tight bolt, Or if it goes down and stays down, you likely have a stuck valve. "

I am not sure where/what I am supposed to be hitting. It says don't hit the valve and spring.
Where exactly should I tap to look for movement?
We aren't there yet but will be in the next hour or so.

Thanks!
Dave

What I think he wanted you to do is to tap on the side of the arm that contacts the spring and valve stem. What you are doing is checking for stuck or sticky valves. Each one should bounce right back up smoothly. If that is cool and each is free then move on to setting intake and exhaust clearances.

Rotate the engine over by hand (use the hand crank if you have it or make one with a section of steel rod or pipe and drill a hole in the end and insert a 1/4" pin through it to engage the cam on the front engine pulley) and bring each piston up to Top Dead Center. This will be the compression stroke, you will notice that when you do this both rockers for whichever particular cylinder you are working on will not move (remain down) as the piston moves upward in the cylinder. You can insert a screwdriver or stick or something in the spark plug hole to let you know when the piston is at TDC. It will move it when the piston is all of the way up. Once again, BE SURE THIS IS THE COMPRESSION STROKE. Both rockers for that cyliner will not move at and will both be down.

Loosen the jamnuts on the pushrod cups (the side of the rocker arm that has a nut with a threaded part with a slot sticking through it) and back them off till the rocker has a little up and down play to it. You should have no spring tension on it and the end that contacts the valve stem should have clearance.

Now get your feeler gauges out and slide a .017" gauge between the valve stem and rocker. Use your screwdriver and turning clockwise, thread the pushrod seat down until you feel the opposite side of the rocker bump the feeler between the stem and rocker itself. Hold your screwdriver where it is and use your 9/16" box end wrench to snug the jamnut down. Do both valves for this cylinder this way, they can both be set at this time.

Do this for every cylinder and you will have set your valves. Once done, crank the engine up with the valve cover off (don't worry, oil will not shoot everywhere) and let the engine ome to full operating temperature. Kill it and go back through them the same way as above. The goal here is to set the valves to .017" with the engine hot.

I hope that is explanied fairly clearly. I don't know how familiar you are with engines but I tried to be as basic as possible. Let us know how it turns out bud!

You can tap on the rocker itself, just not hard. Use a peice of wood in between the your hammer and the end of the rocker arm to protect it from damage.