changin head gaskets....HELP!!

Stock heads have pedistal type rockers which adjust by the adding or removing of shims. If you didn't have the heads milled, you shouldn't need any shims. If you did have them milled the shim thickness equals the amount taken off the head surfaces.

With stock heads, tighten all the rocker arms down to 12-15 ft lbs. Then with the spark plugs removed, crank the engine over until you feel compression on the cylinder you are working on. Then tighten them down to the spec in the Chilton or Haynes manual, which I think is 18-22 ft lbs. Do the same thing until you have done all 8 cylinders. If you start with #1 cylinder and follow the firing order, you can do the whole engine in 2 turns of the crank.

There are more precise methods, but this one works for me with pedistal mounted rockers.

well, first of all if you're just changing the head gasket you don't need the #1 piston at tdc because you're not doing anything that is effected by tdc. the only thing you need to do is pull the distributor cap off and mark the rotor location to the distributor(where the point is aligned with the dis. for reinstalling dis. later on.) as long as you install the dis. in the same location that it was removed from it will not matter about tdc.
second of all if you're just putting new head gaskets on and not having them milled or anything you don't remove the valves. you can just loosen the rocker arms and turn them sideways to remove the pushrods and make sure you put the pushrods back in the same location that you removed them from. also, I do believe the torque spec for the rocker arms is 22-25 ft. lbs.
also, a word of advice for tightening head bolts( new bolts are a good idea. I wouldn't suggest reusing the bolts since they are torqur to yield bolts) tighten them in three steps. follow the torque sequence in a haynes or chilton manual. try 35 ft. lbs for the first step then 55 and then 70. then after that go back and tighten the top row at 80 ft. lbs. mm and ff mustangs did an article on 5.0 torque specs and tests and showed that by doing this they have less chance of blowing a gasket. if you have any other questions email me at goldbomb79@hotmail.com I've changed several sets of heads and I just installed new heads on my 86 yesterday so I've recently been there. lol