valve clearances - general

I have been checking the valve clearances and come into some problems with the instructions.

To cut a longish story short is measuring the valve clearance at any point on the "round" part of the cam acceptable?

Have you rotated the engine to the correct position?

If you have, the cam will be pointing upwards so when you get the feeler gauge between the cam and the shim it'll be on the round part of the cam where it should be.

Originally Posted by Flamin_Squirrel

Have you rotated the engine to the correct position?

If you have, the cam will be pointing upwards so when you get the feeler gauge between the cam and the shim it'll be on the round part of the cam where it should be.

This is the problem, the instruction got me a little confused. When the engine is rotated to the correct postion according to the intructions the cam is touching the shim with the lobe bit, therefore cant get the gauge in.

So I have measured them with the cam pointing upwards instead. I have assumed that as the shim is spring loaded and the cam has the round bit the gap will always be the same providing you are not measuring it with the lobe bit, is this correct?

Ideally you should measure in the "correct position" however in reality as long as you measure on any part of the "round" part before the tangent of where the lobe starts you will be fine because this is a diameter where the gap should be.

[TSM]

Remember that you have rotate the engine 360 before you check each cylinder, they dont both align up on 'F' at the same time. As peeps say, just rotate the engine till the pointy part of the lobe is facing away from the shim bucket.

Originally Posted by TSM

Remember that you have rotate the engine 360 before you check each cylinder, they dont both align up on 'F' at the same time. As peeps say, just rotate the engine till the pointy part of the lobe is facing away from the shim bucket.

Of course, F being the correct position for the front cylinder, R being for the rear.