"Mitch" - The rescued '85

[ostlar]

Just replaced the rocker cover gasket and oil cap gasket on my '90 Galant, and now it was time for the good ol' truck to get a replacement.
They share the same engine (8V SOHC 4G63), so I just ordered two of each. Convenient!
It's long overdue, as it has been sweating oil ever since I got it, and it's been sweating a lot. If it stands still for more than a day after being driven, there will be a drop of oil underneath it.

While I had the cover off, I thought I should check the valve clearance. Now, the manual says to adjust these at operating temperature, but I wanted to do it cold. The original clearances with a hot engine is 0.15mm inlet and 0.25mm exhaust. I found some info online that states 0.11mm inlet and 0.20mm exhaust while cold.



I went with the cold clearances (engine temp aprox. 10°C (50F)), but did 0.10mm instead since I didn't have a feeler gauge at 0.11mm. Some of the valves were reeal tight, I couldn't even get the gauge in between. So I ended up adjusting all the valves according to the manual, put the cover back on and started it up. Didn't hear any noise, so I called it good and proceeded to put on some RTV in the corners of the gasket (also according to the manual), and put it all back together.

Here's what the manual says: (for '84 Montero, but same engine)



Starting up the second time, it was noisy. Real noisy, like embarrassingly noisy. Sounded like just one or two were ticking, but I couldn't locate which.
Gave up for the day and went to party the new year in.

A couple of days later, I went on and pulled it apart. I almost couldn't sleep knowing that my truck was noisy. Did another cold adjustment, but this time made sure that the feeler gauge was stuck before I tightened the locking nut. I could then feel that the feeler gauge had less friction after tightening it properly, and realized that I need to account for that.

Put the cover back on, started it up and drove it. It was quieter, but not silent like it was before my clumsy adjusting.

Came back to the garage, let it idle for a while to reach proper operating temperature, drove it in and adjusted it while hot according to spec.

Started it back up.. and silence! I did it! Finally.

I'm not sure what I learned this time, other than to actually follow the manual, and that tightening the lock nuts can change the clearance slightly. Oh well.