"Taking off the cover is the easy part"

With our current '06 Civic Hybrid, the opposite is the case:

Getting the cover off is looking to be a royal PITA, due to wire harness running accross the top, with no plugs at either end. Coupled with the position of the engine way back in the engine compartment, with the rear exhaust side very close to this "lip" at the top of the firewall, access is another hassle.

I'm gearing up to do this, and have done a few prelim. "excursions". The "lip" is cosmetic plastic/metal combo that frames the bottom of the windshield. I've taken it off once, and will for sure do this again if I do get around to valve clearance check. But do you see where I'm going: excavatiing down to the valves is definitely a big part of the job with our car.

The valve set-up itself is relatively easy: a matter of loosening a locknut and turning an adjuster, as needed. You don't have to be that tuned as to what "slight drag" means, when using feeler gauges. Typically there's 3 thickness comprising the acceptable: if the middle one goes through without a battle, and the thickest one won't go, you're done Always noteworthy: recheck after torquing the locknut, to make sure nothing shifted.

The one downside to this system is that it tends to go out-of-spec sooner than your cam-plus-shim setup.

I agree too-tight is the dangerous condition, and not detectable by listening, and possible, due to valves seating "better", as time goes by. On the few Honda's I've checked the clearance, I've not encountered too tight clearance, but there's always a first time ;(

 

I drove the '94 Corolla with the 1.8 liter engine 185,000 miles before I traded it in. I changed to a 10W-30 synthetic oil at 30,000 miles. The engine was rather quite all the time I owned the car - no clicking at all. In 2002, I ask a toyota tech about the valve clearance. He said they used a go, no-go feeler gauge to see if the clearance is in limits. He said most times you can flip the shims over on the ones out of limits. I did similar back in 1987 with a overhead valve VW I had.

My guess is that the TCH uses the same shim over bucket type lifter although the intake cam is variable.

I bought the shim removal pliers and same type gauge for my '81 VW Rabbit Diesel. I did those myself at 90K. I remember some I could flip over but I did have to buy a few shims from a VW dealer to get them all well in limits. I didn't mind as I was sure proud of the noisy VW diesel Rabbit. I was getting 52 mpg driving to work in Dallas. I remember on really cold mornings that engine was so very noisy, I was probably waking up the neighborhood when I backed out of the garage.

I'm getting to old to do much mechanical work other than alternator replacement if ever needed. My TCH has a Nippon alternator. I was told that Nippon products are very long lasting. This is another of the the many reasons I like Toyota.

 

Jimmy, The TCH does not use shims, you need to relace the whole lifter or(I call them cam followers). Also the TCH does not use an alternator like we are used to changing out, it actually is the big unit coupled to the engine and I don't think I would even taclke that one lol!!!

 

Thanks skywagon for waking me up. I must have confused the Nippon alternator on the Corolla for the TCH. Your right, the TCH only has the electric compressor. The generator is encased in with the power split device housing.

The 12 volt deep cycle battery must gets it's charge from the traction battery.

 

On the '03 4Runner I remember the clearance check being called for at somewhere under 100,000 miles, I think it was 60k.

The SM looked it up and said it would require 17 hours. I told him to forget it.

The Runner now has almost 130k miles on it and seems to be running great in daily use. However, it certainly could have valve adjustment issues.

The replacement rig (sometime in the unforeseeable future) will have hydraulic lifters, for sure.

At least there is no timing belt in this engine.