While I was at the Volksworld show, I bought some EMPI branded swivel foot valve adjusters from Kingfisher Kustoms, as I needed to replace one that was chewed when my engine started falling apart. So this morning I took off the rocker arm and started to fit the EMPI adjusters. I thought they looked a bit rough so I experimentally ran one of the lock nuts down the thread. It went down with a bit of resistance, about right for the apparent quality of the thread. Then I tried to screw the adjuster into one of the rockers. And it went in about 8mm and stopped dead. So I put a screwdriver in the slot and turned it and it felt like a crossed thread. I took it out and found that the thread was chewed. When I held it up to an original screw , it was clear the threads were a subtly different pitch, by 8mm they were enough out to bind. Like an Imperial to Metric conversion or somebody with a very knackered lathe. Also in keeping with EMPI cheese metal principles they were made out of soft metal painted black. It was far to easy to take metal off the screw threads with a file.
