Getting paranoid

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I have adjusted valve clearances on a variety of vehicles over the years , mainly back I n the 80's and 90's as most these days seem to have drybollock lifters., so that's not exactly a problem.
On the subject of tooling to undertake the job , I do have a reasonable collection, but could you tell me the size of the socket required for the crank nut .
I am interested to know how you would use a dial gauge to check the adjustments instead of feeler gauge. This must be a very old school way as it is not something I have heard of before ,, not that I'm a mechanic ..
My main question was to determine which noises and rattles are supposed to be there in the General running of the engine and which ones are not..
I do turn down the stereo and listen to the running of the engine occasionally lol
 
The thing about setting tappets on an old engine is that there is a lot of wear in different parts of the system that it hardly ever seems to make much difference. Tappets noise might be due to worn followers or even a cam lobe. I did my tappets on me series 3 last week, all of them were at least a couple of thou over so I set them to a tight 10 thou. Not much bloody difference in engine noise so there must be wear lower down. I used feeler gauges by the way. I've been mucking about with engines for 45 years and I've never known anyone to use a dial guage.

Col
 
Well just finished checking them and to be honest there was only a couple that really needed doing most were pretty tight to be honest and only just get feeler gauge in most of them,,
Used the jacking front drivers wheel in 5 th gearbox turn the engine which worked easily enough plus saved having to take the fan off..
So Many thanks for you advise ,,
These have never been checked in the 5 years I've had the vehicle so maybe ill do it every other in future especially as it only takes an hour to do
 
Hairball said:
Well just finished checking them and to be honest there was only a couple that really needed doing most were pretty tight to be honest and only just get feeler gauge in most of them,,
Used the jacking front drivers wheel in 5 th gearbox turn the engine which worked easily enough plus saved having to take the fan off..
So Many thanks for you advise ,,
These have never been checked in the 5 years I've had the vehicle so maybe ill do it every other in future especially as it only takes an hour to do
Click to expand...

A feeler gauge should slide with very little resistance, if you have to push they're too tight....Though unless yer being really daft they'll be close enough.
 
Just out or interest ,,
Do these clearances go slack or tighten with use
Only asking because on my bikes with shims they tighten as the valve slightly recesses into head thus causing the clearance to tighten .
But I'm guessing these go slack with use ..
 
Hairball said:
Just out or interest ,,
Do these clearances go slack or tighten with use
Only asking because on my bikes with shims they tighten as the valve slightly recesses into head thus causing the clearance to tighten .
But I'm guessing these go slack with use ..
Click to expand...
generally gap reduces as valve head and seat wear, but the wear on the valve cap ,rocker, push rod followers etc tends to mean gaps are too wide,which retards cam timing
 
so on the whole then James.
im guessing gaps should stay relatively even given the 2 different wear ratio's going on.. one counteracting the other,, within reason.
with maybe a slight opening of gap.. as there are more moving parts on one side against just the valve head wear on the other.
im guessing with all the removal of the lubricating chemicles in mordern fuels now the valves wear at a slightly quicker rate to what they used to.
specially compared with old petrols with the amount of carbon build up you used to get which i presume is a thing of the past on modern engines..
 
got one of them already..
used to use it for setting up cam timings on adjustable pully wheels on my old old car.
and checking the end floats on our workshop saw driveshafts,,
a handy tool indeed
 
Oldseadog said:
Or a Moore & Wright 'Finger' DTI http://www.machine-dro.co.uk/0-30mm-moore-and-wright-indicator-mw400-718.html
Click to expand...

This is a DTI, however as it only has a working range of 8 thou and the gap should be set to 8 thou then setting it to read the full gap required would be tricky.

Obviously the Starrettot one is a Dial Indicator , this has a range of 15 thou so is a little more suitable.

For tappets if you want to set it using a Dial Indicator then the ebay one would suffice.

Cheers
 
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