After a long session of the old "by guess and by golly" much aided by the good advice from above I finally woke up the 235 last night. In my case, it turns out that there is a critical difference between the point when the free play in the rocker is removed and the point when one can no longer rotate the pushrod.
So, the first few frustrating times when I had adjusted that screw till the pushrods would not rotate, and then added another 1/4 turn, the motor was stone dead. I tried the same adjustment a secod time. Still dead. Then I discovered I had never replaced the accelerator pump linkarm back a month ago, so I had to dig that out of the trash. During which time I thought of backing those rockers way off and just removing the free play.
In hindsight it seems crystal-clear. It started right up after that, although it ran rough. Hopefully it was just cold, but it was late so I called it a success and went to bed.
When I get the time again I'll start with a little more exact adjustment and then let it warm up good and fine tune.
I hope I haven't damaged anything by all that turning over of the engine with extremely compressed valve settings.
Karl
