kommon_sense

As stinky said, no need to worry about the valve staying open due to thermal expansion. Just wanted to add that I asked around about running tight on valve lash a while back and one of the answers I got was that you have to be careful because valve seat time is important. It allows the valve to transfer/dissipate its heat. So the recommendation to me was don't run too tight.

offcamber

That they are...but if you adjust the rocker all the way down the adjuster screw you can pop the rocker out. I then put a new rocker/screw back in. i redid the valve lash and torqued everything down to spec with a real torque wrench (snap-on).

But what about that third adjuster nut that fell down into the bottom of the engine? Well i drained the oil and discovered it was at the bottom of the oil pan where i hoped it would be...only problem was that the nut was bigger than the drain hole. I then dropped the pan and got that sunabitch out. two new donut gaskets (B-pipe) and a reused oil pan gasket latter (1 year old) i had the car running. After re-tightening the b-pipe my exhaust leak went away and now i'm counting down the days till i break something else on the car...

Thanks for all the help and suggestions. I'm running 10w-30 Mobil clean 5000 now since the engine is tired and not worth synthetic. I was told that my blow-by issue necessitated more frequent oil changes and that it didn't make sense to buy spendy synthetic oil.