T350 Shim Removal
Discussion
Hello all. Some help needed please. I’ve checked all the valve clearances on my T350 and every single one is out of tolerance. So I’ve ordered a shim kit. I’ve taken out almost all of the shims and measured them whilst I wait for the shim kit to arrive. I used the method of levering the follower to the side horizontally and then getting the shim out with a strong magnet. This method is ok unless you need to get the shim out 4 and 5, 8 and 9 and 12 on the inlet side. And 12 on the exhaust side. How on earth do you get the shims out of these ones? You can’t slide the follower far enough to the left/right in order to get the shim out. Do you have to somehow compress the vertical valve spring? If so, I can’t see a way of doing that without damaging the cam lobe. What would you use for leverage with a small pry bar? I’m baffled. Any help would be greatly appreciated. And pictures would be even better.
martin996uk said:
I won’t be stopping right there, Plasticman. I’ve never heard of a camshaft cap. Maybe you could point me in the right direction of where it is and what it is. Then advise me how to loosen it.
He’s got a good point. The caps are torqued in a sequence and id strongly advise you not to loosen them. With no dis-respect if your unfamiliar with that sort of terminology the scope for disaster is broad.
Anyway, you can access all of the shims even the rearmost, by using a cranked screwdriver or pry bar and gently levering the spring retainer downwards.
Make sure the cam lobe of the shim you are removing is pointing upwards.
Make sure you have blocked every single hole up otherwise your engine will be coming out.
Edited by m4tti on Wednesday 14th March 17:49
Thanks for your reply, Matt. I’m not going to get involved with loosening camshaft caps. I was just looking for the best way to compress the valve spring without damaging anything. I have a small pry bar but I can’t see where the safest place to put it is so I can lever the spring downwards.
You need to carefully push your bar/screwdriver etc in to one side of the spring retaining cap and gently lever downwards. Lever as little as possible and use a magnetic pic up tool.
It might be worth asking if there’s anyone near you to show you an end to end example of how to do this on one valve, before you dive into this.
martin996uk said:
The first response was from cinquecento. He mentioned about loosening the camshaft caps. I now realise what camshaft caps are. It seems an extremely drastic method to get a shim out. Anyway, I used the ‘levering the valve spring down’ method.
Cool you definitely don’t need to. I’ve done every shim including the rear most exhaust shim and didn’t losen anything. Once you’ve done them all, go back and make sure every one is seated squarely in the aperture on the top of the spring retainer.
Shims running through the engine aren’t great news.
Cool..glad it's done.
My only concern about the spanner method is there is scope to damage the camshaft should the spanner slip when compressing the valve spring.
Obviously caps are torqued back down and care of taken not to exert undue force on the length of the camshaft when loosening/tightening.
Nevertheless, great that it's done.
My only concern about the spanner method is there is scope to damage the camshaft should the spanner slip when compressing the valve spring.
Obviously caps are torqued back down and care of taken not to exert undue force on the length of the camshaft when loosening/tightening.
Nevertheless, great that it's done.
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