[Vwdiesel] Valve adjustment - 1.6NA

[Shawn Wright]

> Yesterday I received my Ebay surprise - a box of about 80 discs, and the 
> two valve adjusting tools for mechanical heads. Kind of ironic, but they 
> actually were sitting on my front porch the whole time I had my injectors 
> out & was working on new glow plug wiring... and thinking wouldn't it be 
> nice to do the valves at the same time. I guess UPS dropped them off 
> while I was out.
> Anyway, I spent a few minutes sorting through the box, and found I have 
> at least two of each size from 3.00 to 4.25, so I'm all set. I have nice 
> looking Hazet pliers for extracting the discs, and the 546 tool for pressing 
> the followers down. It appears like the lever inserts between the two 
> buckets and depresses both valves at once - is this correct? Any other 
> tricks I should know about?
> 
> ps: While I had my injectors out, I did a hot compression test (injector off 
> for about 10 minutes after long drive), and found an interesting result: the 
> low & high cylinders had swapped: I now had 450-380-390-430 hot, 
> whereas before, dead cold, I had: 390-430-450-350.
> I'm wondering if the difference in valve clearances between hot & cold 
> could account for such a shift? I'll make a note of clearances (hot) before I 
> adjust the valves and see if there is a correlation. Or it could be that my 
> measuring technique is flawed...

Ok, I did the adjustment today, fairly easy once I got the hang of it. I was not 
surprised to find that #1 & 4 were out by the most, with zero clearance on #4 
exhaust. Most were out by 0.20mm or more. I did it with engine hot, and was 
surprised to find I had to replace several shims after cranking the engine a few times 
to seat them, even though I was careful with measurements. Several of them needed 
another 0.10 mm thinner disc. I didn't have time to do a compression test, but will run 
it for a week or so, then compare results. I did crank the fuelling back up a 1/4 turn or 
so, which gave me my power back, with minimal smoke, thanks to new nozzles. I 
had turned fuel way down to reduce smoke a few months ago. I didn't drive it, but it 
sounds a little bit smoother, could be my imagination though...
--
Shawn Wright
I.T. Manager
Shawnigan Lake School