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Why did VW change their valve clearance specs? My best guess is that the .004 spec is for an engine that is stone cold, overnightsitting cold! The friendly VW dealers(in their neverending quest for higher profits) were not letting the engines cool down enough when they were in their garage, thus they were sending a lot of engines out with tight valves. The change was probably made in an attempt to correct this problem. I have set the valves at .004 with no problem, but like I say, the engine has to be at least air temp cold. Kris Dye 70 sqback auto fi 70 Westy > ---------- > From: Adriaan Loedolff[SMTP:Adriaan@NORTON.CTECH.AC.ZA] > Sent: Thursday, September 18, 1997 6:20 AM > To: type-3@umich.edu > Subject: Valve clearance woes! > > Hi > > Just as a matter of interest: To what specification do you guys set > your valve clearances? I seem to have conflicting information on this > subject as I have quite a few VW manuals and some of them give > different values. > > The official 1965 VW 1500 workshop manual says 0.004 inch or 0.01 mm, > so does the official 1969 VW manual part M (Engine and Clutch). > > Chilton's VW repair & tune-up guide (1967) says 0.004 inch or 0.01 mm > as does Clymer's VW 1600 owner's manual (1966). > > Now the trouble starts: > > The type-3 Haynes manual (1974) says: "Valve clearances an all VW > engines are now 0.006 inch or 0.15 mm. If there is a sticker on your > engine saying anything else, take it off." > > Autodata VW Type-1 (sorry, my brother used to have one and guess who > had to fix it all the time!!!) workshop manual (1989) also says 0.006 > inch or 0.15 mm. > > Glenn's VW tune-up guide (196?) says 0.008 inch or 0.2 mm for some > early engines and 0.004 inch or 0.01mm for the rest. > > > I don't have a valve clearance sticker on my engine anymore but I > have always adjusted my valves as per the Haynes manual to 0.006 inch > or 0.01 mm. > > Why would VW have increased the valve clearances retro-actively on > all engines from the mid seventies onwards? Does it make sense to > increase the valve clearance when the vehicle is being operated in a > predominantly hot environment? If the minimum valve clearance is > 0.004 inch or 0.01 mm I can see a considerable performance loss if > the valves are set bigger. Am I making any sense here? > > What do you lot say? I'm all for adjusting my valve clearance to > 0.004 inch or 0.01 mm just to see what happens. Any ideas will be > welcomed > > Regards > > Adriaan Loedolff > adriaan@norton.ctech.ac.za > '69 Variant Automatic (200 000 miles + and still cruisin' after all of > these years!) >