Is routine valve adjustment needed in a 512tr?

The car is three to four years overdue for its belt service, so ABSOLUTELY it needs a valve adjustment and the cam timing reset. Ususlly this is part of the major, belt, 3-yr service, but some shops only do the minimum required.

When you get into a freshly balanced and tuned 512, you'll realize that the word "perfect" was used a bit too soon.

 

I'll defer to 91tr and the tech gods here (I'm not one of them), but I was told that my 328 would be due for a valve adjustment on its next major. When I pointed out that the car was running great, my mechanic explained that you wouldn't necessarily notice valves being slightly out of adjustment just by watching the idle speed or listening to the engine.

Maybe the question is whether the 512TR has a significantly different valve design.

 

It will at least need confirmation of the valve clearances - meaning a measurement, but it's possible that actual valve shim adjustments may not be necessary. If the car has had a charmed life for the last 6k miles and nothing is abnormal, then I would say no actual adjustment is necessary. The odds are it's another way to extract a little more money from the owner. It is barely possible that the valves will need some adjustments if things weren't done correctly at the 13k mile service. But my "going-out-on-a-limb" guess is the valves are fine. I would tell the dealer to check the clearances first, and if something is out of whack, get a second verification of that fact and if it proves correct - then do the actual adjustment. It does take a knack to measure the clearance correctly - not as easy at it appears. The dealer must get the perception that the owner knows the situation. I can't say it any nicer than that.

 

If your cousin is driving around in a 512 that hasn't had belts in 7 years, he's riding a grenade, but no one wants to hear truth around here anymore...

 

I think that's being a little severe. If the car has led a charmed life, not tracked, not driven too hard, and stored in a climate controlled area, the belts should still be in very good condition. I drive my TR and 355 very hard in all weather conditions, and I usually go a little longer than 5 years and 15,000miles, and every time I look at the old main belt after a service, it is in great condition.

And yes, I've heard about the damage a broken belt does to the engine and that a guy someone knew broke his belt and...
but I've never heard of it happening if the car is babied over 7 years.

 

That wasn't the issue was it?

An incremental $2K for measuring the valve clearances and maybe replacing a couple of shims (on an engine that is removed and already has its camcovers off for the major) sounds way high to me -- but JMO (and I'm not the one trying to make a living at it).

I'm with notoboy -- time isn't an issue, only use, and you get a place reserved in Heaven if you're really doing it every 15K miles on a street car . Since the camcovers are off, I'd have no problem with a Service Dept saying: "Look, it's a little early at 6K miles, but, with the camcovers off, why not -- maybe adds 4~5 hours labor and gives a check of the prior work" (and I find it sort of remarkable that a Shop would not always include the valve clearance check/adjustment as part of the major service).

 

When I had my new water pump put in, the front enigine cover was replaced and thus the head came off. My guy checked the valve clearances as a matter of course. He told me after the fact they were in spec.; no charge. Granted, it's a 2 valve 4 banger, not a 48 valve affair.

Ken

 

That's the point here - yet another US customer getting bent over on servicing costs.

Sounds like an abolute rip-off for measuring some clearances & popping in a shim or 3. Put it another way - at $150 an hour thats 13 hours labour. They ought to be able to remove the engine, change the belts and and refit the damn thing in less than that.

Given the engine is out & the cam covers are off, why anyone would believe it would take more than a couple of hours at most to check the clearances is beyond me. Shims, if any are needed, are normally $3-4 each at most.

If I was the owner of this car I'd start looking a lot more closely at what I was being charged by this shop. Start going in & checking on progress and taking pictures.

Aside from all that, I'd debate that it needs a valve adjustment anyway - what does the book say? On my 328 its every 12500 miles & valve clearances don't change as a result of time, only mileage. This car has only done 6K miles since the last time the clearances were checked. Having said that, because its an engine out job on the 512 it might be adviseable to do it anyway but I very much doubt anything will need adjusting.

One thing to have a good look at might be the camshaft oil seals just to make sure these arn't leaking. For reference when I had the valves checked on my car I also had the CSOSs changed - additional cost was around $250. But then that's from a UK shop that charges sensible prices..... (and assumes that taking the cams off a 512 is fundamentally not that much different from taking the cams off a 328.)

I.

 

All it takes is one tight exhaust valve to burn and give you the gift of a dead cylinder..It will then ruin your whole day.

 

$2,000 to adjust the valves is way too high. The shims are pretty cheap. I have found that the normal going price for a single shim is $5. Now IF, and I do mean IF, you needed every single valve adjusted you are looking at $240 for 48 valve shims. So subtracting $240 from $2000 = $1760. Lets say that the shop rate is $125/hr (which is also too high in my opinion). $1760 divided by $125 = 14/hrs, basically two days of work if you subtract and hour of lunch for each day = BULLSH!T. It DOES NOT take two days to adjust valves. It can be done in a SINGLE day, especially since these guys have all the "special" tools to pull out the shims with the cams in place, and they have shims ready to go. WAY over priced. IF you decide to get it done make them cut the price in half at the minimum. Then MAKE them show you the book hours to do the job. After you see the book hours then you can make your decision based on the shop rate.

Now I'm not trying to say that your valves should not be measured, because they should. You do need to make sure that they are within spec. But I am saying that they are trying to play you for a fool. I would HIGHLY recommend that you are sitting right there next to them watching to see which valve is or isn't in/out of spec.

 

Measure the clearances. With the engine out and cam covers off it will take about an hour to do.

With only 6000 miles since the last time it shouldn't have changed much but it's a good idea to check the last guys work.

If it needs different shims it will add a few hours to the job. Cost of shims is a "non-factor".



What the shop charges for this service is up to them. If it's a "flat-rate" price, the actual time spent is irrelevant.

 

I owned a 512TR that went through three engine out major services. I put 75K miles on it from new and I learned that once the engine is out, you check everything. You don't want to have to take it back out for something silly that should have been dealt with. Every time the valves needed to be adjusted and cams timed (and don't use the factory timing marks, mine were way off), but I did put approximately 20K to 25K on the car between services. The valve adjustment may be fine, but if you're already paying to have the engine removed, why cheap out now?

On my 308s, which I put over 100K miles on each of them, the majors were happening right around 30K miles. Belts looked fine each time they were replaced. Carbs always needed to be adjusted. Cams timed, valves adjusted, distributors curved, etc. And each time the car came out, it ran better than when it went in.

I've always viewed a valve adjustment as part of a major service, along with cam timing, curving distributors, replacing points, changing belts, adjusting carbs, etc. (All depending on whether your car has some of these items of course.)

Steve

 

Bound to be if you only get them looked at every 25-30K when the book says to check them every 12.5 (!) You are right though - now that the engine is it would be daft not to check them.

I.

 

If the engine is out, definitely check them. It will take about an hour to check all 48 and make good notes. I just completed an engine-out on my 512TR and many things I found will go in an old thread of mine that I will re-open after we've test driven and gotten any bugs out, but back to the tappet shimming.

It had been 14,000 mi. since my last major four years ago where they were supposed to have done the valves. Total mileage was 33,000 mi. Out of the 48 I had 29 out of tolerance. Not having a supply of the many, many thickness of shims on hand like a big dealer, I had to remove each shim, mic it, and figure which one was needed to replace it. Then each had to go back in place so the engine could be turned over. The cams must be kept in time with the crank through this process so the old belts must be left on. Most tappets needed a shim .002" thinner (I converted from metric to inches for my own benefit, although not necessary) but a couple needed .004" thinner. What it all meant was when the engine warmed up some of the valves could have been too tight and after accumulating more miles might have been in danger of not closing completely and a chance of burning. I didn't dare put it back without re-shimming.

Many of the shims removed were moved to other valves. An accurate and detailed set of notes will tell you what to order. I think I had to buy about a dozen and had about a dozen left over that didn't fit anywhere. Cost was $7.50 but some places quote higher than this.

I didn't keep track of hours but the cumulative time was definitely more than one working day and probably near two days. A shop that had a large inventory of shims on hand where replacement could be done on the spot at each tappet as it was measured would cut this time considerably.

The bottom line is, definitely check the clearance if the engine is out.

Ron