cold valve adjustment

[jlevie]

so guys, how much tension/resistance should i be feeling on the guage .010 doing a cold adjustment? loose, only feeling the guage touching both sides, or tight, with more substantial resistance. i set them w/ light resistance and they are chattery still.

There should be a fair bit of drag on the feeler gauge. I use a spring tool on the eccentrics when adjusting the valves as that gets the clearance exactly correct with no subjective judgement involved.

When everything is right, there will be valve noise when the engine is cold. But that should pretty much disappear once the engine is at temperature. A worn cam, rockers, or guides will result in hot engine valve noise even when the valves are perfectly adjusted. The injectors can also make noise that sounds a lot like ticking valves.

[down_shift13]

@jlevie - if the injectors make noise, how to do you check that? do you use any tool?

[jlevie]

An automotive stethoscope is a very handy tool to have and will allow you to tell where a noise is coming from.

[long tall eta]

An automotive stethoscope is a very handy tool to have and will allow you to tell where a noise is coming from.

can u use a stethascope on the valve cover to approximate which cylinder tapping is comming from?
and how does the spring tool work. idiot proof valve adjustments?

[long tall eta]

so i did the valves for my first ever valve adjustment and screwed it up. their to loose. doing it again this week. 2 questions.
#1 if i do it with the car warm, how much time do i have before it's considered cold. or should i just do it cold?
#2 should there be a good amount of resistance on the feeler guage or should it move freely before tightening the nut?

[long tall eta]

whoooopeeeee, gotem done. smooth as silk. with partial amputations on both thumbs and right for finger an allen wrench proved to be hard to handle. took a coat hanger and cut approx. 6 inches off, kept 1 end straight and curved the other end, then ground both ends down till they where a little pointy. never used the special spring tool but i'm guessing this was pretty close. might make a new tool running the hanger through a drilled dowl and put them in the for sale thread for, oh i don't know, 25 bucks or so.lol.

[dnguyen1963]

whoooopeeeee, gotem done. smooth as silk. with partial amputations on both thumbs and right for finger an allen wrench proved to be hard to handle. took a coat hanger and cut approx. 6 inches off, kept 1 end straight and curved the other end, then ground both ends down till they where a little pointy. never used the special spring tool but i'm guessing this was pretty close. might make a new tool running the hanger through a drilled dowl and put them in the for sale thread for, oh i don't know, 25 bucks or so.lol.

Get a long Allen wrench...never had a problem.

[Ceeker]

I used the end of e30 antenna mast. cut and bent it to shape of my liking and works fine.