Ticking-solved (mostly)

[mike519]

Well, finished up the valve adjustment last night and found 4 exhaust valves out. Had done the adjustment in Nov but guess these four were not done exactly right. I was very particular about cam lobe position this time. Also, I had seen a couple of notes/videos about the rocker retaining clips and how if they were loose they might cause some rattle (I can see this being a possibility). I took each one off and bent the two little tabs back a little so the retainer stays a little tighter to the sides.

Rattle is significantly decreased...can really only hear a tiny bit at 3500 now. I don't know if anyone but me would notice.

Now, for those that are experts at valve adjustments, do you shim to minimum tolerance or are you just shooting for in between? I went in between but wonder if minimum would eliminate all rattle/ticking.

[thekurgan]

Always shoot in the middle, exhaust side is particularly worrisome. 3500 rpm may be part of the normal VANOS cycle. Ticking can also come from loose/under-torqued spark plugs, but I'm assuming you didn't re-use these and installed fresh plugs.

[StickMon]

If you can't get the middle you should err on the high side.
That's the safe side. It might tick a little, but you're assured that the valves close.
And there are those that say the main source of the gap changing is the valve pounding on the head, which will decrease the gap, not wear of the cam or rocker arm, which would increase the gap.

I have my second "home" valve adjustment coming up in a few months. I kept careful records of the before and after last time, so I can compare and see where they're going.
Mechanics that did it in the past left no records.

[thekurgan]

Originally Posted by StickMon

If you can't get the middle you should err on the high side.
That's the safe side. It might tick a little, but you're assured that the valves close.
And there are those that say the main source of the gap changing is the valve pounding on the head, which will decrease the gap, not wear of the cam or rocker arm, which would increase the gap.

I have my second "home" valve adjustment coming up in a few months. I kept careful records of the before and after last time, so I can compare and see where they're going.
Mechanics that did it in the past left no records.

Good points; valves can/do stretch as well.

[inTgr8r]

That's good news Mike.

[mike519]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the input. Next time I do this I will pay particular attention to hitting the middle. At the time being, I was just ensuring that it was somewhere between min and max and rarely pulled out the middle feeler.

[Mirko]

Great to hear that the sound is all but gone!

[karmasabish]

Originally Posted by StickMon

If you can't get the middle you should err on the high side.
That's the safe side. It might tick a little, but you're assured that the valves close.
And there are those that say the main source of the gap changing is the valve pounding on the head, which will decrease the gap, not wear of the cam or rocker arm, which would increase the gap.

I have my second "home" valve adjustment coming up in a few months. I kept careful records of the before and after last time, so I can compare and see where they're going.
Mechanics that did it in the past left no records.

do you have instructions anywhere on this? I'm due soon....

[StickMon]

See this for the M3.
Same engine, same procedure.

Attached is the spreadsheet I used.
I left the first sheet filled in with the results from my last adjustment as an example.
It's in mils, because that's what my feeler gauge and mic are in.
The required ranges actually come out to more even numbers in mils than in mm.
The fourth decimal place (tenths of a mil) is made up based on "feel" from 1 to 9.

If 0.007" goes in, but it's so tight I have trouble getting it out, that's 0.0071".
If 0.007" goes in and is kind of floppy, but I can't get 0.008" to go in, then I call it 0.0079".

S54 Valve Adjustment Record.zip

Tips:
You don't need the special socket to turn the crank. You need a 32mm hex socket.
Take the fan out. It's easy to do, and makes it a lot easier to turn the crank.
The shim kit comes with 23 different sizes.
There's probably about 8-10 sizes that you would ever need. About 2.16 mm to 2.52mm.
If you just buy 5-6 of each size in that range, you can save a couple hundred clams.

[beta]

Originally Posted by karmasabish

do you have instructions anywhere on this? I'm due soon....

Valve Adjustment.

Originally Posted by mike519

Thanks guys, I appreciate the input. Next time I do this I will pay particular attention to hitting the middle. At the time being, I was just ensuring that it was somewhere between min and max and rarely pulled out the middle feeler.

Good job on getting it sorted.

I would not worry at all about trying to hit some middle number, the shims aren't that fined grained.

For example: Intake spec is .18 - .23. When I did my adjustment, intake valve 5 Rear was 0.24+. The shim it had was 2.32, the next size up is 2.36 which puts the final clearance at 0.19+.

The only way to have finer grained shims is to have done this job many times on many engines.

[yousefnjr]

I had my inspection 2 done yesterday and my ticking is nearly gone as well. It used to rattle kind of loudly 3000-3500, now I can barely hear it. I think the shop said they only had to shim ~4 of the valves, so I guess it doesn't take much for the s54 to be really noisey

[mike519]

Originally Posted by karmasabish

do you have instructions anywhere on this? I'm due soon....

shipkiller's website is a great resource for the how to