before it dies

[street_dream]

i just bought a 86.5 supra this past weekend the guy said it has a bad rod knock but the sound is to slow to be that plus its coming from the top back of the valve cover.
id be taking a shot in the dark saying its valve lash, even if it is i dont know how to adjust it. any ideas?
heres a video of what it sounds like
http://www.youtube.com/v/v1GdjRCFzLM&hl=en

[CRE]

Valve lash? Possibly, if it completely threw a shim. The valve covers are easy enough to pull just pull them and look. A stethoscope would help a lot.

[Jeeves]

I'm with CRE.

Could've thrown a shim, doesn't sound quite like rod knock..

[street_dream]

well i feel relieved that the guy was wrong, ive got both valve covers off and a feeler gauge so when i get back from school i'm gona take a look at it.
hope you guys are right on this

[willtotheumm]

These guys definately know their stuff. I'll vouch for them lol. I hope it isnt anything too bad dude. You have any pics of it?

[street_dream]

ok so all the valves check out good except 3 5 and 6 four valves total theyre all just above .011 for clearance.
what do the shims look like? and where do i get more?

[street_dream]

yea i some pics ill post them in a couple minutes for you bro.

but i need to know were to get the shims so i can get this problem resolved
the sooner i get that done the sooner i can start really playin with it u know

[willtotheumm]

I myself dont know what those shims are. I havent dug enough into my Supra yet to find out. I know a lot of the guys on here could tell ya or even show you pics My head is 2 hours away so I cant go snap pics of mine haha

[Jeeves]

These are the shims we speak of:
[img]http://www.**********s.com/supra/shimoverbucket2.jpg[/img]
Forgive the nastiness of the photo, it's a head I had sitting in my garage.


If those are all in place, you might want to get either a mechanics stethoscope (sub-$10-$15) or a lonngngngnngng screwdriver (place the tip against the engine, put your ear to the plastic base) and try and locate the noise. Rod knock can take many forms and you do have the symptoms of it, it just sounds wrong.

Start it up, let it idle, and figure out if that noise is in the head or the bottom end. Neither is good, but the bottom end is the worst. If that's what it comes down to, I'd say it's something in the combustion chamber (part of a spark plug, nut, etc.) or rod knock.

[street_dream]

i did the stethoscope test this morning, heh good timing. but now im after a "j shaped" tool that can compress the bucket to take the shims out. i asked my dad about the shims, and supposedly i can flip them upside down and that will fix the clearance problem i hope. so tomorrow if this all works, i'll be hunting down this tool and probably spend more for tools than the repair lol. ill tell you how it goes

[CRE]

Originally Posted by street_dream

i asked my dad about the shims, and supposedly i can flip them upside down and that will fix the clearance problem

Heh, this works on occasion, generally only when the clearance isn't too far off to begin with. It also depends entirely on why the clearance is off. Don't count on this being the fix... odds are it's not.

At any rate if you threw a shim, you're going to be looking a more work than just popping it back in. It's probably caused some damage.

[street_dream]

well the shims werent thrown i could see that, i got a second oppinion from my dad on it...
rod knock i was sure it was coming from the top end especially since in didnet sound erratic the only good news about that is its still holding oil pressure so maybe just maybe the damage didnt go as far as the crank ive got most of it torn down already so bettween now and summer i should have it back together

[Jeeves]

Sorry to hear that But it happens to the best of us.