Valve clearance adjustment

Nice work! So you measured all of the valves and then removed the cams, changed the shims and put it all back together?

 

And all clearences w/in specs after assy. I'm assuming??

 

I had mine done in February.

In the car it was a 12 hour process to pull it apart, check the adjustment and put it back together. No changes were required at 50,000 miles. Someone had already been into it as evidenced by the blue Form-a-Gasket in place of real gaskets. All oil leaks have now been stopped by means of new, real gaskets.

There are at least 120 acorn nuts involved in this project. 120 is where I lost count while polishing them.

Greg

 

Hi Alastair,
We checked the valves because I needed the peace of mind.
I have bad news about polished acorn nuts: they dull right down.
But then, the crust and fuzz stays off of them making them look more presentable.
Greg

 

I'm suspecting that you might have thought these 2 valves were going to be close after assy., am I correct?

Let's be honest, by & large...the engines in these cars are generally not kept to the same standards as say ...............a 512!
Yeah, there are examples from time to time that do have clean ones (low mileage) but I believe after 2-3 decades of use (& heat in those engine bays), the cadmium coating is going to loose its brightness & become dull...lets face it.
In an attempt to brighten my FI lines, I 'lightly' wiped them with metal polish ( Mothers) in an attempt to remove some of the chalkiness, but instead it removed what little coating that remained. I quickly passed the point of no return, so I continued on until the one line was at a chrome-like appearance. I found that with Mothers, they dulled in about 4 months time. Then I remembered using Simichrome on my dirt bikes as a kid & that the shine would last for quite some time. Now that everything is polished up, I spend 1 weekend every year maintaining that shine on all parts (aux. air valves, vacuum valves, wur's, cap nuts, radiator caps, etc., even the injectors). Simichrome leaves a protective coating to help inhibit this dullness from returning. It's not all that dull after a year's time but I just like the brightness afterwards.

http://simichrome.premiumstore.com/?cid=44378&chid=1&gclid=CODN8PzPwbACFYeo4AodHTkAWw

Use it sparingly, it goes a long way. If this is considered molesting, so be it. It can always be re-plated if, in the unlikely event, these GT's become highly sought after & collectible. Ferrari engines are supposed to look brand new all the time. I felt that the black & chrome was a better appearance than the black/gold/chrome/stainless mix.
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I think it looks outstanding!

 

Yup, I used that too.
The difference is that I decided the new "patina" was OK and have just left them alone since February.
Greg

 

Shims used on the Ferrari 365/400/412 are the same used by early Volvo, I found them to be cheaper and more available.

 

Have been doing some maintenance on the GT the past week. Both valve clearance and timing was off so it was about time.

Read through this older thread and the valve clearance mentioned are not correct for the 400GT as this thread was about. These values are for 400i. Probably many of you know this but thought I'd mention it so others don't actually use these clearances for their 365 GT4 2+2 or 400GT.

Correct measures for the carburetted cars are 0.10-0.15 inlet,and 0.25-0.30 exhaust.

A

 

Can the shims be replaced with the cam in place? Any idea which Volvo is the one that uses the same valve shims?

 

There is a small cheap valve shim removal tool made by hill engineering for that purpose.

The shims diametre is pretty common (fiat x19), I had issue finding the proper thickness though (could not find thin shims). Seller "dg_rally" on ebay does sell the proper ones at a reasonable price.