confused with valve ticking

[schierholz]

Hey guys I have my car pretty close to ready to somg just doing some final adjustments. What I am running into is after repairing a my leaking tube seals, valve cover and decided to adjust my valves to what is stated on the hood and to the T with the 10 on the intake and 12 on the exhaust.

I have a beautiful ticking that started pretty quietly I could close the hood at idle and barely hear it, now after taking it on the freeway and around town at least 200 miles later I can hear the ticking from up to 20 feet away and when driving it inoys me so much I have to turn up my music just to try and cover the sound that is really driving me crazy

Now I went to the j.y and pulled a un adjusted full valve rocker hopeing maybe it will solve the problem. Now before I put it in I want to get a opinion from you members might this fix the problem or is there something I should look for?

[accordztech]

When you did your valve adjustment, how cold was the motor?

Its recommended that the car have been left sitting for a very long time when you do the adjustment.

Why not just readjust the valves to see if it fixes it?

[GhostAccord]

Before you go and replace the entire assembly you can check to make sure a jam nut didn't loosen. Also check your valve adjustment again and ensure the engine is cold/ambient temp out of the sun.

[EsperHamid]

a piece of advice from someone who ruined his engine !! don't do it while it is still hot tomorrow morning is the best time for valve adjustment.

from experience with this annoying problem, try to increase your idle using the idle screw, if it disappears then the valves are properly adjusted, not loose and the most probable culprit is the DAMNED MESSY CUNT !! P/S PUMP !!

the next thing to check would be engine mounts then air in the cooling system

[schierholz]

I went ahead and adjusted them in the morning before I even started the car and It was pretty quiet after that then after some freeway driving It got louder and also when I opened my hood my #3 cyl spark plug wire popped up just off the plug (just higher than the rest) which is odd to me. Then went ahead and let my friend with years of honda/acura exp (ex honda dealership tech) give it a shot and it's finally not AS noisy you can still hear a little valve tick with the hood down but im leaving it alone as it sounds close to what I feel it should.

I just wanted to get it toned down because I was not any part cool with listening to valve ticking inside my car and especially on the freeway I definitely could hear it.... Think he also went back and took his torq wrench to all the bolts to see if I torqued them right

[Fleetw00d]

Did you back off all the valve adjusters before reinstalling the rocker assembly? If not, then some of the torque for the rocker assembly bolts went into compressing valve springs, not properly clamping the rocker supports to the head (this may be why the spark plug wire popped up - crankcase pressure leaking into the tube hole).

If you did not back off the adjusters, I suggest you do so, then loosen and properly retorque the rocker assembly bolts. DO NOT install another rocker assembly from another engine without adjusting them; they could end up being too tight (burn a valve) or too loose (even more ticking) when installed on your engine. There is a tolerance on the setting (at least +/- 0.001 inches. If you are careful, setting them closer to the low end of the tolerance (0.009 intake, 0.011 exhaust) will reduce noise.

Make sure your thermostat is good. The clearance is there to allow for thermal expansion of the engine parts at temperature; if it is running too cool the valve clearance may not close up as much as it is supposed to.

[schierholz]

Thanks for that I will re check all the rocker's here before I go to school real quick.. I would not be surprised to see that it would tone down the ticking though in the same sense the replacement has considerably quieted down the noise Ie. I can sit at a light and not hear anything, only time I hear anything is at start up where it hits 2k then drops to 1.5 k and down when I cannot hear a thing inside the car) I have had friends say I can't hear your car anymore... but there is very good merit in that... I went and checked all my sparkplugs for un usual wear and it seem to look all good so at the moment I am quite happy for the engine being at least close to what it was before the adjustment just now its not leaking in the tube's

I have not gotten to replacement of the thermostat yet. It seems to work the car stay's at temperature even at stop lights where now that I replaced the fan timer the fan actually does indeed kick on I have not used my a/c pressure switch jumper in a few weeks. Because of the over heat and list of things I had to replace I have had to push back my smog but other than the fear of it over heating on the machine I am pretty confident it should pass I don't smell anything other out of the ordanary out the tail pipe.