On a 1953 263 that I bought used, the shop manual and the reference section above say on the road valve lash should be at .015, and can be adjusted to between .017 to not quite .018 after a short warm up in the garage, and this will give .015 when warmed up on the road. Since the slightly colder engine valve lash is set slightly larger than .015, it appears that the lash gets smaller as it warms up. Can I assume that initially setting up a cold engine then should be a bit larger than .018?.........like maybe .019 to .020? I know it's best to start too loose than too tight. This is just to get it going. Once it is in the car and running, I will adjust to the warmed up spec of .017 to less than .018 per the manuals.

Dave