Valve adjustment on a briggs engine

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I have watched how to fix this problem..

What causes this to happen ?
How can you prevent it ?
 
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Wear, vibration and heat.

The two cylinder models are a pain in the butt. I've had mine apart 3 times. 1st time the pushrods dropped and bent, 2nd time I just noticed them getting loose, 3rd time another set if pushrods and the bronze bushing were walking out of the head. Not terribly thrilled with it considering it has less than 200 hours on it.

From what I've read heat is the biggest problem, I've got problems with mice building in it and the nests plugging up the cooling fins.
 
Typical wear on small OHV engines. The manual actually states that this is a maintenance item to be addressed. The motor he was working on is the same motor I have on my small splitter. Although not as bad as the one in the above vid, it is starting to get the same heavy compression on startup. That tells me its time for an adjustment.
 
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.04 thousands or .004 ?
 
I had a bad needle valve on a carb and it would slowly flood the cylinders with fuel, making it behave the same way. I installed a shutoff and no more problems.