Valve Adjustment

[yarista]

General Question:

Does anyone ever adjust Yaris valves? I hope not. They have shims. Motorcyce valves that use shims need regular checking and adjusting. Perhaps the hardened valve seats (i assume they have hardened seats) on the Yaris keep them in adjustment. I have an 07 and an 09 USA Yaris.

[baseballfan416]

I can only confirm/comment from my experience with my acura, but valve adjustment was part of the 110k maint. It was kind of a waste though because they took the valve cover off, only to make tiny adjustments (if I recall, they admitted to not making any changes and I got stuck paying for the labor). I would bet your inclinations are true for the yaris in that minimal adjustment is usually necessary.

[daf62757]

I thought that the values were automatically adjusted and didn't need manual adjustment. We will have to wait for CT to weigh in.

[ilikerice]

They are manually adjusted, they use shims also. To adjust you must find the correct shim size. Good news is. there is no maintenance required to adjust valves. The only time you need to adjust valves is if you somehow got your shims mixed up in doing a rebuild. Or swapping out a camshaft.. but even then I didn't need to swap out the shims if i put them back in the correct order. Possible just luck though.. but still. You can easily get a feeler gauge in there if you wanna do a quick inspect.

[bronsin]

I have had motorcycles for 15 years that use the same adjustment set up as on the ECHO and Yaris. Once set properly they tend to last a long time. My 92 ST1100 had 109k on it and was never adjusted. On the other hand, a 2001 BMW I bought new had ZERO clearance on both exhaust valves from the factory. Lucky for me I checked it at 600 miles.

Almost no cars use this system. Frankly I would not trust a Toyota mechanic to do an adjustment. The good news is a CHECK is easy, well within a home mechanics capacity. More good news....very few ECHOs or Yaris's have ever had their valves checked much less adjusted. The origional setting last perhaps the life of the car.

Bad news.

An adjustment is difficult and rarely done by mechanices at Toyota. Also, as the valves wear they receed into the head causing the clearance of the exhust valves to lessn over time. You wind up with tight exhaust valves which burn and cause a valve job.

Good news. You seldom if ever hear of this problem (valve job) I never have.

Recommendation.

Check your adjustment yourself at 60,000 miles. I wtote a proceedure at Edumunds at the ECHO forum. Theres like 6000 posts in it now.

[ilikerice]

^ all valid points.. I find it funny that nobody really trusts a dealership. I don't blame anyone for not trusting them. I have seen some fucked up stuff. I hate getting "come-backs", doing a repair and customer not satified and I then have to do the same job for free.. I only had to do 2 valve adjustments, once because I dropped my buckets while moving my tool box and half the shims came out of the buckets.. And I had to replace a camshaft, couple of shims were off but not all. It is really isn't that hard to swap the correct shims esp when you have to correct tool. The shim chart is idiot proof also

[bronsin]

Im not saying the dealerships are not trustworthy. (or that they are!)

Its just that they probably dont have much experience doing the work. Any mistake could dammage the engine.

[ilikerice]

Yea.. I agree with you. just like transmissions.. if you have a transmission problem and take it to a toyota dealership.. they will only R&R the tranny under warranty.. We we're not allowed to dissasemble a tranny and put it back in a customers car. They only thing we did was replace shift solenoids. Main reason why my auto trans ASE test was so hard for me.. I rarely got to see the inside of them unless it was on my own time, which I dont have alot of.

[RedRide]

My previous Toyota (Celica GT) had the same valve set up and if one is to believe all the posters on the fourums, they very rarely needed any adjustment.
I sold my Celica with over 95k miles on it and the valve adjustments were in fine.

BTW, all cars have harderned seats and this has nothing in to do with vave rocker clearance that would need adjustment which is what were are talking about . Hardened seats simpley keep them fom "buninmg up" at present day operating temps using unleaded gas .

There was a time when very few cars had hardened seats (and valves) when gas was cheap and the engines were set up to run rich to cool the valves and seats. Then came the gas shortage of the '70s, the banning of leaded gas and everything changed.

Our valves can go out of adjustment due to wear somewhere on the whole valve train and this is what hydralic lifters compensate for.

Anyway, if your engine is running fine and there is not excessive valve tapping when completely warmed up, you are fine. A certain amount of light tapping in normal.

[ilikerice]

Also dont confuse Valve tapping with Injector pulse.. toyota have loud injectors out the factory and sometimes when people get something in their head about a tapping, that noise is doubled.

[UberSilver]

Originally Posted by yarista

General Question:

Does anyone ever adjust Yaris valves? I hope not. They have shims. Motorcyce valves that use shims need regular checking and adjusting. Perhaps the hardened valve seats (i assume they have hardened seats) on the Yaris keep them in adjustment. I have an 07 and an 09 USA Yaris.

I do not have a factory repair manual, so I have no idea about what Toyota designed into the Yaris. But I've worked on 100's of motorcycles, that started using shims back in 1973.

If there shim over bucket? Valve adjust is easy. If there shim under bucket, still easy, but will take 3x the time, as you'll need to remove the cams.

I prefer a shim system, as they keep there adjustment for much longer then a tappet system(most of the time, but not always).

And when you stated ~Motorcyce valves that use shims need regular checking and adjusting.~ Thats not true, unless your speaking of poorly design engines, such as Ducati's. It's common for Honda's to go 100k without a valve adjust. My VFR has 60k. I've checked it at 30k & 50k and it's still within spec.

[jambo101]

I doubt you'll ever need to adjust the valves on the life of your Yaris...

[UberSilver]

Turns out the 1NZ-FE does not use shims. You can adjust the valve clearance, but you'll need to replace the lifter/bucket. So it will take some time and money to do the adjustment.

[Absolutely Red 12]

Originally Posted by bronsin

Bad news.

An adjustment is difficult and rarely done by mechanices at Toyota. Also, as the valves wear they receed into the head causing the clearance of the exhust valves to lessn over time. You wind up with tight exhaust valves which burn and cause a valve job.

You don't take into account cam, and cam follower wear, which will negate valve wear.

[Absolutely Red 12]

Originally Posted by UberSilver

If there shim over bucket? Valve adjust is easy. If there shim under bucket, still easy, but will take 3x the time, as you'll need to remove the cams.

The cams need to be removed.

From the manual:
The adjustment of the valve clearance is accomplished by selecting and replacing the appropriate valve lifters. Adjusting valve lifters are available in 35 increments of 0.020 mm (0.0008 in.), from 5.060 mm (0.1992 in.), to 5.740 mm (0.2260 in.).

[peckerhead]

I've got a 2007 with about 120k on it. I bought it a year ago with 93k on it, and it's was a former corporate car from around the Chicago area. I do probably 99% highway driving. I can tell my valve adjustment needs to be set, because I can hear kind of a funky idle after I get it hot. It's not cause for alarm yet, but I need to address it soon.

I'm an auto tech, and I've looked into this a little bit. Looks like there are something like 50 different length lifters available from Toyota, and the only way to figure out what you need it to measure your clearances, determine the change to be made, pull the cams, and measuring your existing lifters. The lifters are $25 each from the dealer, and they get $500 to do the job if they need to replace one only.

It doesn't look like too much trouble, but I need to figure out how I can live without my car for a week while I wait for the lifters to be shipped. It's annoying. Whoever came up with this abomination needs to be slapped. Hard.

There's a local guy selling a used 1.5 with the lower oil pan wiped out. I'm considering picking it up for the lifters. Maybe I can use one or several of them.

[DMZ]

Originally Posted by peckerhead

The lifters are $25 each from the dealer, and they get $500 to do the job if they need to replace one only.

.

Goodness, when I replaced the shims on my Kawasaki they were less than $2.00 each from the dealer. The whole procedure was fairly straight forward and took about 1 1/2 hour because I took my time. I did once after break in and again at 20k. Motorcycle engines operate at much higher RPM's and higher temps than automobile engines so checking clearance and replacing shims, if needed, was a routine maintenance job.

It seems like it would be much easier on the Yaris because there is much more room and you are looking straight down on it. If you have a good torque wrench and feeler gauges, it should be a snap.

[UberSilver]

Not sure about Toyotas, but on most motorcycles the intake shims are the same thickness, and the exhaust are also matching. If the 1NZ-FE is the same way, buying a trashed engine will not help.

Originally Posted by peckerhead

I've got a 2007 with about 120k on it. I bought it a year ago with 93k on it, and it's was a former corporate car from around the Chicago area. I do probably 99% highway driving. I can tell my valve adjustment needs to be set, because I can hear kind of a funky idle after I get it hot. It's not cause for alarm yet, but I need to address it soon.

I'm an auto tech, and I've looked into this a little bit. Looks like there are something like 50 different length lifters available from Toyota, and the only way to figure out what you need it to measure your clearances, determine the change to be made, pull the cams, and measuring your existing lifters. The lifters are $25 each from the dealer, and they get $500 to do the job if they need to replace one only.

It doesn't look like too much trouble, but I need to figure out how I can live without my car for a week while I wait for the lifters to be shipped. It's annoying. Whoever came up with this abomination needs to be slapped. Hard.

There's a local guy selling a used 1.5 with the lower oil pan wiped out. I'm considering picking it up for the lifters. Maybe I can use one or several of them.