DIY visual inspection for dummies

Wheeling, Wv. Car was bought last summer in Johnstown, PA where it lived for 44,000 miles until I bought it.

 

Hmm, maybe a lot of salt in that area... I've used Tremclad rust reformer successfully. It's fairly inexpensive, you just have to make sure you give the surface several coats after you wire brush it good. Then top off with some Tremclad rust primer (red oil based primer) and watch to make sure it doesn't come back or get worse. A can of Rust reformer is only about six bucks, should be easy, though you might want to see if you can remove the plastic cover off to get to all of the surface. Good luck...

 

Thanks, I'll try that.

 

I'll also post detailed photos of it for you guys to see. Let me know if everything looks good.

 

I realize this is a very old thread. Was under the car and curious so I googled the inspection and ended up here.

Just want to point out that "valve clearance" is just starting at us from within a list of exponentially easier things.

If your engine like mine is over 150k the valves probably need adjusted. Mine is doing the "Toyota tick".

People on this forum say it's incredibly difficult to DIY lifter adjustment if that is needed. I think it's probably difficult and expensive + time consuming. But DIY for $150 is less than the $1000 a dealership is going to charge you...

From what I can tell, you would have to either order all (32? 16?) lifters ahead of time, or measure them and then wait a week for new lifter(s) to arrive?

Anyway I want to inspect/adjust my lifters but also don't want to ruin my engine so....

 

Adjusting valve clearance is difficult. You will need to remove the camshafts to do the adjustment.

But to check the valve clearance you will just need to remove the valve cover. That just requires you to remove the cowl.

Getting all the possible thickness of lifter is not really feasible. You would theoretically need all possible thicknesses of lifters for all the valves. So something like 50? lifters for each valve. That would be 800 lifters. Of course you could just order some of them but still that's way too many.

 

There are 16 lifters. If I remember right, they come in 35 sizes. So if you're at the factory and you're building an engine, you have all 35 sizes right there and you just determine which ones you need and put them in.

In an earlier post, I once suggested for DIY "just order 560 lifters, choose the right ones, and try to return 544 for a refund", but I was being kind of facetious. That would be a four-figure investment, and the "try to return for refund" part might not go well.

Most people with a 1NZ engine that needs its valves adjusted will react by putting in a 1NZ engine that doesn't.

The 2ZR in Gen 3 and later has hydraulic valve adjusters, making DIY a much less absurd proposition (at least on that front).

Edit: maybe for the hardcore, like I was doing with injectors, there could be the PriusChat 1NZ lifter box. If you decide you really want to tackle a valve adjustment, you get the box shipped to you. Finish your engine, restock the box for the lifters you used, wait for the next person to want the box.

Would have to be pretty hardcore. I don't think an individual lifter weighs all that much, but a box of 560 could make a nice thud on your porch. Not to mention the shipping....

 

I wouldn't contemplate doing a second gen Prius valve adjustment. I did our Honda's for decades: would get the shop manual (around $100 CDN), and with one valve adjustment figured I'd recouped the cost. But with Honda, you basically pried off the valve cover, rotated the engine a few times with a ratchet, and adjusted clearance via a screw and locknut. Took about an hour on the older cars, longer with our last since the windshield cowl and a wiring harness was in the way.

 

People keep referring to measuring the lifters. How is that done? Couldn't you measure them and then mail out for the exact sizes you need?

 

So.. I have pretty much no understanding here, but what's to prevent someone from measuring what size lifters are required and then mailing out for the specific sizes they need?

 

That's in fact what you would do.

I think people have a problem with doing the disassembly, the measuring, the ordering and then the waiting for your order to come in before reassembly can commence.

There is only one post I know of where a person did do exactly this lifter adjustment. Maybe you could try and find that.

Most people thought he was mad for even contemplating the job, but were in admiration when he completed it.

All power to you if you do it. You certainly will have my respect.

 

You will need to do all the disassembly before measuring. Measuring is done by first taking out the lifter and then using micrometer to measure it. Then you will just calculate the needed lifter for that valve from thickness of old lifter, valve clearance that you first measured with feeler gauge, and the speck for valve clearance.

Problem with this method is that by the time you know what lifters to order you will have done the complete disassembly required. All you would need to do after that is put it back together with new lifters. So it really doesn't make sense to put it back together with old lifters. Then you're stuck with your car apart waiting for the new lifters to get to you.

 

The last project of a similar sort that I let myself get into was rebuilding a transmission on a 1984 Bronco II (a Canadian body powered by a German engine, Japanese transmission, and transfer case from the US of A). You test-fit the transmission case parts with the new bearings and this tells you the thicknesses of the bearing shims you need to order. Then I went to the dealer and found that, whatever it was, maybe five of the six shims I needed could be sourced from US warehouses within a matter of days and the sixth one was going to be on the slow boat from Japan. I had transmission parts spread on the bench for a long time.

See also Art's experience replacing a Gen 1 MG2.