Valve Adjustment Advice

[otE30touring]

I know it`s not the same car/engine, but the rocker arms on my escort mk1 were so badly worn (didnt notice until they were off) and a big groove had developed giving the same situation that Paul talked about.
I sorted them at work and what a sweet little engine she was.

Mart.

Thanks Mart, this is useful to know! It sounds like the issue I am probably facing is a combination of wear across the valve train components that my feeler gauge is bridging so the gap is always way too big. I'll probably have a look at setting the clearances at the cam lobe.

[fixedwheelnut]

The best way is to use the correct spring loaded tool to avoid excess tension when adjusting the eccentric wheel as in this link below.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Valve-Adjustin ... B013XTNI80

I have used a couple of split pins in a piece of vacuum pipe as amake do before.

[paultv]

Very true, I made my own...works a treat!

Paul

[otE30touring]

Thanks for all the help guys!

I gave them another adjustment this morning, but this time at the cam lobe and it's made a huge difference. For anyone who is having the same issues as me, I've measured the clearance between the cam lobe and the rocker arm as opposed to between the top of the valve and the rocker arm. It would appear either the eccentric on the rocker arm, or the top of the valve itself are pitted over 30 years of use, not surprising! For this method then, most importantly you need to account for the rocker ratio since the rocker arm acts as a lever when pivoting. The actual ratio varies over the movement of the rocker arm, but from what I was reading and what the likes of Paul have said, 1.5:1 seems like a safe ratio to assume, when the rocker arm is off the eccentric of the cam lobe.

As such, rather than adjusting to 0.25mm/0.010" at the valve, you can adjust to 0.25mm/1.5 = 0.166mm which is equivalent to 0.0065". I therefore opted for a 0.17mm/0.007" feeler gauge, although it seems like plenty of people have gone down to 0.15mm/0.006" without issues. I went for a slightly tigher 'drag' on the feeler gauge given that I was going slightly over the 0.166mm, however we're talking fractions of a millimetre here so I wouldn't imagine it making a huge difference.

As a reminder, this is what mine sounded like with 0.25mm at the valve:


It now sounds much better, check out the below video for an example of what it sounds like with 0.17mm at the cam lobe:


As a reference these were filmed on the same phone and in both videos the engine had been running for no more than a minute, so pretty much stone cold.

To me this seems like the better method for engines that have a decent amount of mileage on them as most or all of them are likely to have a fair amount of valve train wear I would think - anyone disagree with this?

Thanks again for the help everyone!

[Lemon98]

She sounds sweet as now!! Glad you're much happier with it, think I'm going to adjust at the lobes next time I do it.

Thanks for the update and what a big difference in sound. Is there any difference to the way it drives?

[martauto]

It makes you wonder what other settings along the line dont really apply because the car is not "factory" anymore ??
A bit of "out of the box" thinking sorts alot of things
Bet you feel good now ?

Mart.

[otE30touring]

She sounds sweet as now!! Glad you're much happier with it, think I'm going to adjust at the lobes next time I do it.

Thanks for the update and what a big difference in sound. Is there any difference to the way it drives?

Doesn't it just, proper M20 sound that! Yeah I would highly recommend it, access to the lobes with a feeler gauge is harder than to the valves but still not too bad.

At idle I can barely hear the tick in the car, and even less when out on the road. Drives absolutely fine still, I started it from cold (around 0 degrees Celsius today) and it fired right up with no issues. Took it out for a drive later and took it up to redline a few times with no problems, pulled strongly all the way through.

Thanks for the help man.

[otE30touring]

It makes you wonder what other settings along the line dont really apply because the car is not "factory" anymore ??
A bit of "out of the box" thinking sorts alot of things
Bet you feel good now ?

Mart.

So true Mart! God only knows what other things we shouldn't be adjusting per the factory spec anymore, especially wear items like valve train components!

Yep much better now thanks, glad I can drive it without the all consuming ticking noise!

Thanks for the help

[HJ1981]

One note, those 80s injectors on EU cars are known for ticking, so it MAY not be the valve clearance (only) that you hear.

[otE30touring]

One note, those 80s injectors on EU cars are known for ticking, so it MAY not be the valve clearance (only) that you hear.

Yes thanks, there is definitely some injector tick mixed in there too!