HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

Valves tick? lost performance? is it just time to do a valve adjustment on your ole gal for maintenance sake? Whatever the reason, I got you covered in this valve adjustment writeup. The car I did is a 1996 Accord DX 4 cyliner. Its got an F22, just like your car does if youre here. lets get this thing started!
TOOLS
Feeler gauge set (angled is best)
10mm combination wrench
10mm shallow socket (preferably 6 point)
Ratchet in whatever drive size your 10mm socket is
4 inch extension to fit your socket and ratchet
Flat head screwdriver
19mm 1\2 inch drive shallow socket (6 point)
1\2 inch drive 8 inch extension
1\2 inch drive ratchet or breaker bar
Pliers
Rubber mallet (may need it to get the valve cover free)
*Torque wrench to fit 10mm socket
*1\2 inch drive torque wrench

PARTS
Although not totally needed, I highly reccomend a new valve cover gasket, sealing grommets for cover studs and some upper spark plug tube seals, I bought my gasket with upper and lower tube seals and grommets from autozone for 25 bucks and its a good idea to ensure there will be no leaks when youre done with this job.

MAKE SURE THE MOTOR IS COOLER THEN 100 DEGREES F BEFORE ADJUSTING!!

now lets go adjust some valves!

1. make sure your car is in park if its an automagic and if its a standard set the parking brake. Crank the steering wheel to full left. Chock the wheels.
2. Open the hood and disconnect the neg battery cable (I only say this because there is a ground wire you need to disconnect on the valve cover)
3. Pull off all 4 spark plug wires and unhook the PCV valve and the other vaccum hose from the valve cover. You might need pliers to squeeze the hose clamps and slide them back to get the hoses off.
4. Wipe away any dirt from around the valve cover area, after all you dont want a bunch of crap getting in your motor when you take the cover off. Now, using your 10mm socket, take off the 4 acorn nuts that hold your valve cover on and take off the ground wire in the front corner by the oil fill cap. Lift off your valve cover, if you find its stuck take off the oil fill cap and stick your fingers in the hole and pull up to get it free and if this fails, grab a rubber mallet (dont use a steel hammer) and TAP around the sides of the cover. Use care not to break the valve cover.
5. Now you will need to get the upper timing belt cover off, there are 2 bolts that hold it on. The first one is easy and is down by the motor mount. The second one is in a tricky spot. You will need to take out the bolt holding the dipstick tube on and pull the tube up until its bracket touches your power steering pump bracket and then take out the timing cover bolt.
6. Pull off your timing cover and then take a look in your drivers wheel well. Theres a star shaped hole in the plastic splash guard to access the bolt on the main engine pulley. get your 19mm socket and extension and breaker bar or ratchet and stick it in there onto the bolt. you will see on the timing belt pulley a stamping that says UP. Turn the engine counter clockwise (CCW, to the left) until this mark is pointing straight up and the two dashes line up with the surface of the head.
7. Break the lock nuts loose on all 4 rockers for cylinder number 1 and slide a .012 feeler gauge in between the rocker and valve on either exhaust rocker for cylinder 1 and adjust until theres a slight drag sliding it back and forth. Do this for both exhaust rockers and tighten the lock nuts. Snug them up with your 10mm wrench while you hold the screw from moving then re check the clearance to be sure. If using a torque wrench all the lock nuts will be torqued to 14 lb ft.
8. Do the same thing for the intake valves using a .010 feeler gauge and tighten lock nuts.
9. Turn the engine CCW until the UP mark points to the exhaust manifold and the dashes point up and down.
10. Set your valves on cylinder 3 just like you did on 1.
11. Turn the engine CCW until the UP mark points down. the dashes will line up with the head surface again.
12. Adjust cylinder number 4.
13. Turn the engine CCW until the UP mark lines up with the intake manifold and the dashes are straight up and down.
14. Adjust cylinder number 2.
15. Re assembly is reverse of removal unless your changing your gasket and upper tube seals. If your not, put it back together and enjoy! Just note that honda wants you to re torque the main pulley bolt to 181 lb ft after your done. Make a note too that the upper timing cover has to go on before the valve cover. If you are doing gaskets and seals, go on to the next step.
16. Pop off those old sealing grommets and junk them. Take the screwdriver and carefully pry the old spark plug tube seals off the underside of the valve cover and throw them away.
17. Push the new seals into the grooves being sure they seat in all the way.
18. Peel off your old cover gasket and carefully inspect the head and valve cover to make sure gasket surfaces have no peices of old gasket still suck on them. If they do, scrape the peices off with a razor blade but be very careful not to gouge up the gasket surfaces.
19. Spray some carb cleaner or brake cleaner on a rag and wipe off the gasket surfaces. Let them dry.
20. push your new gasket into the groove and put a little dab of black RTV at each corner and in the middle to hold the gasket on and let that sit 5 minutes so the RTV gets tacky and holds your gasket in position.
21. Put your upper timing cover back on. Set the valve cover back on the car, put the new grommets on the studs and make sure they drop into the holes in the valve cover.
22. Put everything back reverse of how you took it off and enjoy!

the images in this post are from alldata.

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

pics of the work on my actual car that are labeled

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

I busted ass on this all day and not one comment? I made this for the faq because the other one was linked from accordingly done and it didnt even work

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

Good job. I did one on a '91 Accord a couple weekends ago. About half of them were on the tight side. Some on the intake side are harder to get to because the injectors, manifold, and whatnot get in the way.

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

yeah mine were all tight except 4, that means I have burnt valves doesnt it? it seems to run fine so I dont know

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

add this to the faq thats what I made it for

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

subscribed! good thread

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

if it hasn't already been added I will add it


edit:
Dave must have already added it :thumbup:

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

Great write up bro.

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

nice i deff be using this next warm day here in KC

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

VERY GOOD!

I had to read the Haynes Manual to figure this out.

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

Awesome DIY, mine are in need.

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

thanks guys, NGU, do you mean there was something unclear in my writeup or do you mean you did yours with the manual?

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

Masterkill,

Thanks for the great write-up...

One question. I have an F22A6 (just getting familiar with the designations) and I have the lower tube seals... Should I back off all the valvetrain hardware and then replace the tubes, before re-installing the valvetrain hardware and then adjust? It's just that I've never done this and would not know how to decide whether I was successful or not (a Honda engine that loosely fits in a 5-gallon pail being a definite indication of massive failure...)


Which is worse, oil in the plug tubes or a bad valve adjustment?

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

I need to do lower tube seals now too but they arent too bad yet, anyways YES back off all the adjustments before doing the replacement then do the adjustment. Start out by putting the engine lined up for adjustment on number 1 cylinder. That way if you take the timing belt off the upper pulley, you can always easily line it all back up if anything moves on you. Dont turn the engine while the belt is off! Mainly you need to be sure the timing is still correct after you put the timing belt back on or your setting yourself up for trouble. If you arent comfortable take the car to a shop but dont let this stuff freak you out either, its really no big deal. I will probably make a writeup on tube seals with pics when I do mine.

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

Masterkill,

I figured that I would finish up the timing belt replacement and do the lower tube seals just before I install the upper covers, That way the timing is at no risk of being compromised. It's just that (Again) I've never adjusted any valves before, all the other engines I've ever worked on had hydraulic lifters, so this is a whole new world for me...

Anything else I should be careful/aware of...?

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

If you can do the write-up for the lower seals in the next couple days, us fellow f22a4's would appreciate it.

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

I dont know when it will be, its not something ive had time to play with yet

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

how much hp u think u can loose if ur valves tap?

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

dont know, mine was boggy until i adjusted the valves i know that

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

would this write be the same for a 1991 accord lx? thanks

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

im sure it would be. not much is different from f22a and f22b

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

ya i got a 91' accord and the other day i was driving to a town about 30 minutes away and i stopped at a stop light and didnt want to idle so i reved it up and lite turn green took off an it was weird and didnt have much power and kind of hit and missed what do you guys think is wrong with it let me know.

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

Nice I need to do a TLC maintenance to my f22b2. Poor Motor

Re: HOW TO: Adjust the valves on your F22
 

ok im attempting to do this on a 1995 accord ex vtec and when i go to turn the motor ccw it just keeps getting resistance and goes back to where it was, any suggestions?

thanks -cory