Valve adjustment, is milage the best determining factor?
 

My 86 had a valve adjustment @ 57k miles but that was back in 2006. So its been 7 years since the last adjustment and now there are 68k miles on the clock.

I was thinking about having it done to get a baseline on the valves so I looked into it and was told that an adjustment should be done now and that regardless of the mileage a adjustment should be done every 4 years.
I am now trying to understand the logic in this statement. Is it based on what would be 15k miles a year? 4x15=60? Meaning the recommended adjustment milage is 60k.

Do the valves in our cars if not driven just loosen by just sitting?

If so this is a heck of pitch for P cars shops everywhere.

Your Wisdom and knowledge is needed here....

Sound? Valve chatter?

Sound is definitely an identifier of valves loosening.
But is sitting going to loosen them over time?

A car sitting will not loosen or tighten valves. If the car runs fine then just have the valves adjusted when ever 15,000 comes along. Shops love to make money. This is no different than sending your injectors out to be cleaned for $300. If the car runs great then the injectors are already clean. But if you are a rich guy, all of this does not really matter.

I go by sound. I had a shop do mine 3/12, as they were "due" via mileage.

Had them done again last week, only 3700miles since last job, but the noise was increasingly bad. GLAD I DID, as catastrophic failure was on the horizon due to the last shops negligence...

Thanks Guys. I was just looking for a sanity check on the whole adjustment every four years thing.

Make no sense I see. I will back it up from 60k miles (recomended) to 15k. (thanks Nick)

SauCy, Ouch, Would like to hear your story on this.
I think mine are getting loud now, hearing it more 4-6 on the exhaust side, don't have the $$ to drop on them at the moment. We should do a coffee and cars sometime. I can see if r-mm is interested also.

If you are noticing more noise, I'd suggest having the work done now. Have sombody that you trust do the work. Have him write down the clearances before and after and keep that record. After you've done that a couple times, you'll have a better idea of how much the clearances change and therefore what interval to use. 10-15k is the usual, depending on how the car is driven.

JR

I can barely hear the difference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOWwMJ7QJLs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDcYT6-Agnc

I would think an experienced Pelican may be the answer if you choose to get it done sooner without a boatload of cash available.

Pay some money to make it worth his while and have it done buy a Porsche DIY-er that has done several. Pay him a little more and he can let you help if you have that desire.

It's just my personal opinion but this is one thing I'd encourage people to have pro do. It takes a lot of practice to develope the feel needed to do this well and there are quite a few other things to look at while you have the motor opened up. I've seen countless threads where somebody tried to adjust their own valves and ended up making things worse, not better.

Just my .02...

JR

Hey Bob,

I have a really good P car shop I work with but would love to be able to do it with an experienced DIY-er.

Paying for experience will definitely reduce risk.

Thanks for the comment on the noting clearences! Great idea.
As i mentioned above I have a good shop I use so that should be no problem.
Was thinking of scheduling this week but just did an oil change...

Pushing,
thanks for the reference videos. I do hear the difference in the two videos and nice to be able to say my 3.2 does sound like the,"after," motor clip.

javadog has a good point about the experience factor. Keep that in mind as to the risk you can tolerate.

I would be comfortable myself with a good DIY-er that knows this procedure.

I would also and it would be well worth it to get that knowledge transfer and some seroius bonding time with my car as well!
I know a local guy who is not a PP member but has worked on air cooled P Cars for a long time. Need to get his contact info.