My g/f has a 96 DX and the last couple of weeks her valvetrain had been significantly noisy. Seeing how she was approaching the 90K mark, I decided to go and do a valve adjustment. Simple enough right? Wrong!! When I turned the car back on, the valvetrain sounded like a hailstorm, almost 2 or 3 times worse than it did before!

I am baffled. I thought I did everything correctly.. put #1 piston at TDC, then do intake with my .008 in. blade (spec is .007-.009 in.) and then exhaust with my .010 in. blade (spec is .009-.011 in.) then rotate the crank CCW 180 degrees and do piston #3 and so on.. I really dont know what I did wrong. I made sure there was slight drag (this is where it could get tricky) and was careful not to more the screw while tightening the nut.

Has anyone had a bad valve adjustment experience? Any help/ suggestions appreciated!

 

u did it when the engine was cold right?

 

yep, let it sit overnight.. i'm waiting to recheck the clearances tomorow morning

 

I messed mine up the other day. My advice is to use the feeler gauge that falls i in the middle of the spces. (e.g. if its .009, .008, .007 use .008) Tighten it up good and go for it. All i can say is try it again.

 

Thats what I thought. The manual said this: (intake- .007-.009 exhaust- .009-.011) and I used the .008 and .010 accordingly..

 

DON"T ROTATE 180 degrees.....

only 90

do 1-3-4-2 in that order....not 180 degrees only 90
helms or chiltons is wrong!!

 

did you make sure that the screws didnt move when you tightened the nuts back up? theres a snap-on tool i use that comes in handy when i do valve lashes

 

That depends whether or not your looking at the cam gear or the crank pulley. Just make sure you READ and apply it to the right thing.

 

i rotate the crank so that the cam gear only rotates 90 degrees....

 

Just re-do it untill you get it right. That's the only way to learn..

If you screwed it up a little bit, it's not a big deal. Start over. I'd suggest going with the smalled gap too..

 

getting the feel of the amount of drag on the feeler gauges is wicked. Goto dealer, ask a mech when he is doing an adjustment to let you feel the drag on the feeler gauges.

Makes me wonder how tight my .004I/.005E setting really were.

 

you sure you didn't leave anything in there? or left something loose?

 

ok guys, I rotated the CRANK 180 degrees so that the camgear rotates 90 degrees. I have the harbor freight tool (same as snap-on) and yes I tried to make sure they didnt move. I tightened everything up pretty good so thats why I'm so confused. I'm about to go recheck the clearances now so I'll keep you updated. I think its the drag where I messed up...

 

I've done that before, i payed close attention to make sure I did it by the book. It was my 3rd time doing it too. Afterwards it sounded awful. I went back, and performed the adjustment again, and the #3 cylinder was too loose. The only thing I could think of was that when rotating the crank I must of been off a little. After the 2nd adjustment it was back to normal. Try doing it again. It helps to make marks on the crank pulley with white out every 90 degrees so you can be sure your rotating it exactly 180 degrees between adjustments.

 

Another question guys, if I turn on the car once I'm finished, even for just a second or two, just to see how it sounds, do you think I'm good to go back and adjust again, or do you think the engine would get too hot to work on it again?

 

Good **** . 1/3 The price of the Snap-on and works just as good.
I need to recheck mine but its about 17º.

 

Oh, and another thing I messed up is that I read TDC off the cam gears instead of the crank b/c I couldnt find any markings on the crank pulley!! does anyone have a pic of where these markings are???

 

<U> UPDATE: </U> I'm halfway though the 2nd adjustment (have cylinders #4 and #2 left) and I found most of the clearances from yesterday were too big (ie too much gap) and I tightened them down a little so that it drags a bit more.. I'll let you know how it goes when I'm done...

 

too bad they don't sell it anymore..

 

A little tip:

Tighten untill it grips and you cannot pull it out. Then slowly un-tighten it untill it untill you can remove it and still put it back in..

That's how I do it, and it works well..

 

Ok well it turned out better this time.. the engine is ALOT quieter.. thanks alot guys for the tips and advice!

 

your welcome

 

setting valves is almost a black art. I now let a friend at local Honda dealer do the setting.

I have to do the teardown/cooldown, just let him do the valves.