Valve adjustment Newbie Story

[drewr]

So I've owned my 1977 911 Targa for 14 years and had never adjusted the valves (Well, I tried once with the feeler gauge and chickened out).

So I had a full weekend with the wife and kids out of town, so jumped in. Got a Kirk valve lash tool, new gaskets, new spark plugs, oil and filter. The whole thing took most of Saturday. I was glad to see intact head bolts. Finished up in the late afternoon and fired it up.

It ran terribly! Rough and sounded like it was missing. I raced through the possibilities. I didn't gap the new plugs. Did I screw up the valve adjustment? I found the Kirk tool helpful, but was not sure I was doing it right. Of course, I had just filled it with new oil.

So I waited until the next day to tackle it again. I worried about it all night. In the morning, I pulled each plug and gapped them appropriately, all about 0.1 mm off. Then I used a trick I found on the forum. I jacked up one side at a time to prevent the oil from leaking out when I removed the valve covers. It worked surprisingly well!

I checked all the valves. Sure enough, 2 of them were too tight, with no play at all. I readjusted all of them so they had that slight wiggle. I had to skip every other valve when I turned the crank so I could adjust one side at a time. It was easy and worked fine.

Covers back on, and I fired it up! Spins like a top. Better than before. Pulls nicely through the gears. So adjusting the valves is not hard, but it requires a feel that is hard to put into words is a manual or write up. The Kirk tool helps, but it is a little fiddlely trying to hold it and a box wrench while you're under the car. Once you see it, (or I guess feel it) it is not hard to replicate.

So another 911 job done. Hopefully this will help someone.

[John W.]

Nice story. Glad it turned out good for you. I’ve yet to tackle my valves but am planning on dong so.

[mikesarge]

Not too dissimilar from my first experience adjusting the valves in my SC a couple of months back. My second time through, I found two that were certainly too loose, and two that were possibly too tight. I used a traditional feeler gauge, but once you get the feel for the amount of slack, it's not too hard. I read one post that said it's hard to get it too tight if you use a feeler gauge and just snug the rocker up to the valve, and I found this accurate checking my work with the back-side method.

Glad you got it figured out! As someone who grew up working on cars with hydraulic lifters, and avoiding adjusting the valves in my old aircooled VWs, it felt good to conquer this task on the 911 for sure.