jb039

Hey man, Nice post. I'm thinking of doing this pretty soon.

I just have a couple of quick noob questions though...

1) Do the valve cover bolts have to be tightened in a specific order?

2) What is that aluminum hardline for?

3) I see two connectors on the the wire harness, but what are they plugged into? There is a small connector and a larger green connector on the right side of the harness.

xRiCeBoYx

iTrader: (22)

valve cover sequence


aluminum hardline is for A/C

connectors are (i think) for the alternator

scooty

A quick short cut for manual car owners. To turn the crank, instead of popping the driver side wheel off and using a breaker bar on the crank pulley, just jack the driver's corner side high enough so the wheel turns.

Throw the car in 5th gear, and simply turn the wheel to turn the crank. You should be able to turn the motor over easily this way with the plugs removed.

CivicN3wb

Great DIY! I'm planning on doing this next weekend, but I'm a little confused why you say it takes an entire day to do? It seems like popping off the valve cover and turning the 16 bolts until they grab the feeler gauge would only take maybe an hour or so?

Also, do you recommend changing the valve cover seals/gaskets after taking the cover off? I thought I read somewhere that the seals should always be changed when the valve cover is opened..

Thanks!

xRiCeBoYx

iTrader: (22)

It takes a while.. Not necessarily all day. However, if you drive the car into say, a garage or something to do the job, you have to wait for the head to cool to.. <100F, if I remember correctly. And the job can be kind of a pain in the ***, too, but if you're proficient at it, shouldn't take you long. Most time consuming part for me was torquing down the nuts still trying to maintain the proper clearance.

as for the gaskets.. it's a rubber gasket, not a fiber, carbon, or crush-type gasket, so I just reused mine. Sure, you're supposed to change gaskets every time you break the seal, but when I was in the Navy, we did a visual inspection of rubber gaskets before we decided to reuse them or not. I've broken the seal on my valve cover numerous times without replacing the gasket, and I've been fine.

CivicN3wb

Well, I was planning on doing this next weekend, but ended up doing it today. The guide was a great help!

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that I did a good job of the adjustment, because my engine is still making a clicking/fast ticking noise (it sounds about the same as it did before to me):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht89jXzp8lA

What do you think?

EDIT:

In retrospect, I should probably have posted my question as a new thread. I'll do that.

hemplacrosse4

Hello guys new to the forums here, so I have done my valve adjustment about 3 times and I think I found my problem but I just want to double check. I have been using my Haynes manual to do this. Now the difference I have seen through the Haynes DIY and this DIY is that Haynes says to use .008 and .010 the problem I have been having is a small ticking noise when I rev up the engine and it has been driving me crazy, so my question to you guys is this my problem using the wrong measurement feeler gauge lol sorry if this sounds stupid but I have been trying to learn this on my own...Also the car I own is 2001 Honda Civic 1.7L DX

Marooka

Pics aren't displaying and the link above is broken!

Anyone have these pics?

Thanks,

Mark

Javage

^Ditto, If anyone could reload the images or someone give a link to the PDF file that would be great!

xRiCeBoYx

iTrader: (22)

I don't have pics, but here's the PDF I have. I think it's the same one grey uploaded way the hell back when
Valveadjustment.pdf

Javage

Thanks!

xRiCeBoYx

iTrader: (22)

No problem. That's what I'm here for.

When I have time (haha.. yeah right..), I'll search around to see if I still have a copy of the printout I made. If I do, I'll scan it and upload that as a PDF, as well. It is fairly straightforward, though.

Marooka

^ditto

xRiCeBoYx

iTrader: (22)

For the sake of future folk wanting to undertake this procedure, I took the liberty of updating the link in the original post to the googledocs link I just posted up.

xRiCeBoYx

iTrader: (22)

I also took the liberty of finding a decent article on valve clearance adjustment.

http://www.georgebelton.com/6g.civic...lve.clearance/

I just gave it a glance, but it looked good. He has the cylinder order messed up though.. should be 1-3-4-2 (I think), 1 closest to the timing belt.

Javage

Skimmed over the article, seems pretty good.

He has the cylinders numbered correctly, 1-2-3-4(Left to right/ gear to tranny) or 4-3-2-1 (looking at the motor from the exhaust side).

1-3-4-2 would be the firing order, which can be seen by watching the valves open/close when the valve cover is removed and rotating the crank. This will probably be the best order to adjust each cylinders' valves.

localkineguy

I'm from the school of thought, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." But, I am tempted to adjust my valve clearances on my 1997 Honda Civic DX (170k miles). To my knowledge, it hasn't ever been adjusted yet I still get 32-33 MPG. Should I go for this undertaking?

kinakoes2

Actually, if all else is good... you should be getting better than that esp from a manual... 35 - 36 is about normal for the non-VTEC 7th-gen non-Si...

Valves on these motors tend to go tight rather than loose... so inspecting them at the usual intervals is highly recommended -- tight valves make zero noise but can burn a delicate exhaust valve esp.

BTW... your screenname is 'localkineguy'... are you actually Local, as in from Hawai'i, went K-12 through school there, and can speak Pidgin convincingly?

That would make only a few of us active Local posters here on the site, from what I've seen. Figures... since the modding scene is so weak esp on my island.

bsmiley

I adjusted my valve clearances. I used the 0.007 inch gauge for intakes and 0.011 for the exhaust.
Clatters like a diesel now. I think I should have used 0.008 & 0.010 gauges. It runs smoothly, but clatters at idle and under 2500 RPM.
I'll have to wait until next Saturday to adjust them again... will it hurt the engine driving like this for a week?

gts

I have the pics. Grey sent them to me a week ago.

Anyone here have privileges to edit his original post and put the pics (or links to the pics) back in?
If so I can send them to an admin or upload them to some place like photobucket

jameschris777

Hey guys,

My question is what do you do if you break one of the exhaust valve adjusting screws at the top of the rocker arm in cylinder three? I was torquing the bolt after changing the water pump, tension er, sensors, and timing belt and one of the studs broke with the nut still on it.

Thanks

Colin42

Replace that rocker arm assembly, junkyard will be cheapest

xRiCeBoYx

iTrader: (22)

Updated the original post with a locally hosted link to the valve adjustment PDF. Hopefully I won't get anymore document access requests from Google

Pics are no longer hosted anywhere, so there's no use asking for the pics. Sorry. If you're willing to take this on, you should know your way around an engine bay and what different things are supposed to look like.