My Daughters 94 Accord ex (4 cyl Vtec, 156,000 miles) engine is starting to make an awful clattering sound, especially when cold. I'm thinking it needs to have the valves adjusted and I doubt she hasn't had that done since she got the car 3 years ago. I have a Hanes manual and the procedure looks pretty straight forward, but I thought I'd check with you guys for any tips or cautions I should be aware of before I tear into it.

Thanks everyone for helping me keep it on the road.

 

With that many miles on the engine, it might be needed to replace the valve cover gasket and spark plug tube seals.
When replacing the valve cover gasket, you need to place a little silicone sealer at the corners of the cam humps.
If the valve cover gasket is stuck in the valve cover you can run a propane torch along the metal to break the gasket loose.

 

I just did mine over the weeekend. Mine had a little oil leaking into the spark plug area as well. I put a little silicone sealer around the spark plug tube seals to solve this issue as well. When I had re-installed my valve cover, I had oil leaking out and realized the gasket had sliped out of the grove when I was re-installing it, so I had to take it out and put it on again.

As far as the valve adjustment, there is a little tool that you can buy for about $20, which screws into the spark plug hole, and it can ACCURATELY tell you when you are at TDC, because it touches on the piston so that you look on the scale guage to tell when it is at the maximum position.

As far as adjusting the valves, just be patient. There is a special tool which is a screw driver/socket combo which makes pulling and tightening the valve screws super easy. It just takes a little more work without this tool. You have to do each separately. Just check your gap after each adjustment to make sure it is within specs.