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Old 10-21-2009, 08:07 PM
MarkM MarkM is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Concord, MA
Posts: 603
agreed...

Quote:
Originally Posted by leathermang View Post
MarkM, I think you are being a little less serious about the valve adjustment than may be good for your engine...
A too tight clearance on our engines can result in a burned valve in twenty miles of driving. HALF THE COOLING YOUR VALVE GETS COMES FROM BEING IN CONTACT WITH THE HEAD AT THE RIM OF THE VALVE.
So if sufficient clearance slowly gets taken away from whatever, OR you set it wrong... a burned valve can be a very quick tragedy.
The other factor which you may can change for the better easily and cheaply is to make sure your valve rotators are working and in good shape.... on some of our engines only the exhaust had them... but they can be installed on intake and exhaust easily when doing valve stem seals for instance.. no machining... just buy and install when putting it all back together.
They help by keeping deposits of carbon from potentially blocking the valve from good contact with the head...and help keep everything Round and matched to each other.

If I sounded like I discounted the importance of valve clearance adjustment, that is probably because I assume everyone does this necessary maintenance task regularly...I do it about twice each year (every 8K miles or so?).

Question....what is a valve rotator...are they on123 diesels? From what I recall, the valves on our 123 diesel engines have a stem, stem seal, spring, and lock/cap nuts..isn't that it? Or are rotators something that can be installed as after market?

Mark
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1984 300TD Wagon, 407,800 mi (current daily driver)
1985 300DT Sedan, 330,000 mi (gone to that great autobahn in the sky)
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