97 V6 Valve ajustment- example pricing / diy difficulty

[thegmann]

My 97 Camry v6 xle is making a ticking click noise from under the valve cover. I figure its a valve that is out of adjustment. Apparently valve adjustments fall under routine maintenance ( every 60,000 miles) but I'm not sure if my car has ever had that done.

So I asked my local shop to take a look while they were replacing my spark plugs and valve cover gaskets recently and was told the adjustment would cost about 800 dollars. Unfortunately I don't have that much to spare.

So my question: Is that a decent price for that kind of work ( which it really doesn't to me after reading the steps in my service manual) and if not how hard is the job to do yourself?

Thanks for the help guys.

[hill8570]

Since adjustments are all using shims, the process is quite tedious (and, of course, getting to the rear bank on a V6 is just freakin' enjoyable). It's not technically difficult, 'tho.

While the manual calls out valve adjustment every 60K miles, those valves hardly every go out of adjustment. Before you start twiddling things, I'd take a real close look under the valve cover for other possibilities.

[thegmann]

What other things should I be looking for?