jakeflyer

Ice, congratulations for a job that is not as easy as it reads or looks. I took my son thru the process in September, money in the bank.

Peter-- Re: flow of glass (the liquid), wonder is older car glass was better with any/ less flow.

Rice

Ice, great job. I am thinking about doing a valve adjustment and am starting to read about them. It sounds complicated.

old man neri

It's not. It's simple....pay someone 300-500 or do it yourself.

Actually the steps are rather straightforward, it's just the setting the exact gap that can be a bit of a trial and error thing. But fear not, the people of rennlist are here to help!

-matt

Rice

Thanks for the encouragement.

Amber Gramps

buy the tool. My first go thru took all day trying to worm an entire set of shims arould in there. My second time I had the little tool that just holds a small 3/4" x 3/4" chunk of .004 shim. So much better.

911vet

There are many people on this forum more knowledgable than me... but I'd be glad to give you some pointers when you get ready to do it. Just send me a pm.

I had never adjusted a valve on ANYTHING before I tore into my 911. And I managed to do the job. You can do it.

I have a few suggestions:
1) listen to Doug Bray and buy the tool and a whole bunch of replacement blades. Once the blade gets jabborwockied... it's useless and you cannot tell if you've got the gap right
2) FORGET THE WHOLE 'BACKSIDE' METHOD!!! Maybe I just don't get it, I wasted booku time trying to make that work and never could... and for a first-timer, I'd say don't complicate things with this.
3) you must break the oil-suction seal to release the "elephant foot" from the end of the valve stem before you can insert the feeler gauge. It's a simple step and probably obvious to everyone else... but no one told me and I spent about 1 hour on the first valve trying to figure out why the adjustment nut was as loose as it would go and the gap was nonexistent. It's little stuff like this that Rennlisters can warn you about and make your life easy.

Now... GO FOR IT! It's a rewarding job.

sig_a

Back side method is a great way to check your work after you adjust the conventional way. Especially helpful on cylinder 3 and 6. For first timers it is a great help.

old man neri

Honestly, I found it as a hinderence, I thought it was great at first after reading so many great posts on it. I did it twice, found it to be a pain. Then I did it the normal way...I thought it was a lot simpler and better.

redtdi96

Is this 18ft -lbs for the valve covers? I seem to remember it was about 6ft-lbs from a Pelican tech article

old man neri

Who knows, who cares. I do it by hand and it never leaks.

Wait till people on the internet find out that washers are actually one sided and must be placed facing the right way up.


To be honest, I don't have a torque wrench that has the ability to do 6 and 18 ft-lbs accurately so I just guess it by hand with a normal wrench. Is it the right thing to do? Well, apparently not. Have my covers leaked? Not that I have ever noticed.

-matt

sig_a

I found the special feeler gauge more difficult than a straight blade craftsman. Back side method does add additional effort for sure, but for me it was a way to check each cylinder after first setting each the conventional way. Firm valve cover fasteners and clean gasket surface works for me.