Probably a good idea. I think these still use shims and buckets, yeah?

 

No. Solid bucket lifter with no shim. Adjustment is done by swapping around/replacing lifters with a lifter that will correctly bring the valve into spec.

 

The car is an 2004 Camry I4 with 200k miles and I was wondering if the valves needed an adjustment.

I suspect you already know this but I'll mention it anyways. The only way to know is to check them. Not by asking people that can't even see the car. But I will go out on a limb here. With 200,000 miles on it, maybe. ?

 

What about the engine that had a ticking valve for the past 300,000 miles? Taking chances?

 

In an engine with solid lifters, you are probably not taking chances at all, so let 'em tick a way! All the ticking sound means is the valve has a slightly greater clearance then specified, and this rarely does any harm - it's GOT to have some clearance between the valve lifter and camshaft, after all. The silent valve is the other side of the coin and that can mean there is not enough clearance which is not good at all...because that means the valve might be getting held off its seat, which will cause the valve to burn. You can of course just get out the feeler gauges, warm up the engine (almost always the valve adjustment measurement is for a HOT engine not a cool one) and check clearance on the ticking valve if it bothers you. But on an otherwise healthy engine a bit of extra valve clearance won't hurt it.

 

You can turn the crank pulley over to tdc and check a few valve clearances. Do that about two or three more times and you can check all valve clearances. Should be able to find procedure on YouTube. It's fairly easy with the I4 but a pita with the V6. Regards

 

is there any procedure that isn't a pain on the v6's donald?

tony

 

You can adjust your valve clearance but it might not be very cost effective. You might find the clearance is still at factory specs or a bit looser, which is exactly what you want - but at this mileage I think you will find one or more valves are probably going to be a little bit tight just from normal wear. Then you get to play the shim game, unless you pay somebody to do it which probably defeats the purpose of the whole exercise. And at 200,000 miles it might be close to valve job time and the only way to tell is to do a valve leak-down test. I think I'd just leave it be and drive it unless and until there is a problem, which might not be for another 50,000-100,000 miles.