Tappet adjustment - valve clearances for EJ engines

Fazed

Fazed

Forum Member
Joined
May 11, 2014
Messages
206
Location
Australia
Car Year
2003
Car Model
Forester
Transmission
Manual
Sorry to be a little off topic, but how often do the N/A EJ's need their valves adjusted/inspected? There is no mention in the manual of it being part of the scheduled servicing. I would assume that every other service would be the go.
 
I used to check the tappets on the Mitsubishi Colts about every 50,000 Kms.

Adjusted the tappets on my '93 Impreza once early in its life. They weren't set properly. Never touched them again ... The engine was still running well some 200K Kms later. Probably would have helped if I had changed the plugs though ... :iconwink:.

Modern engines have bigger adjusting screws and bigger lock nuts on their tappets than engines did in my youth. Camshafts and heads are located more securely and better supported. Metallurgy has also come a very long way since then. All these things lead to less need for maintenance IME.

I certainly wouldn't bother adjusting the tappets on an EJ engine every 20-25,000 Kms. Maybe check them every 50,000 Kms, if you are dead keen. OR any time after a "real mechanic" has done anything that might affect the adjustment ...

My touchstone for tappet clearance was that the next bigger feeler gauge should not fit; the correct size should have light friction when it is slid between the surfaces; the next smaller feeler gauge should feel quite loose. It is very important when doing this that the feeler gauge is exactly at right angles to the clearance, and that the crankshaft is in precisely the right position for that valve.

Hope this is of some help.

BTW, I have moved your post and mine to a new thread in the Under the hood sub-forum. The topic deserves it's own thread.
 
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All good Ratbag, wasn't sure if it warrented its own post or not and nothing came up in search. The service shedule on my old Rodeo recommends inspection every 10,000kms and I found, like yourself, that this was overkill. I just found it rather odd than an engine with tappets didn't have an inspection period in its service shedule.

93 impreza, brings back some fond memories and my one had just over 400,000kms on the clock and was my first Subaru. It was very unfortunate that I sold it to get an XV.
 
^ Yeah, Fazed.

I would never have jumped over a Forester originally to buy an Impreza, had the Forester been made back then. Had the Impreza for nearly 18 years and about 236,000 Kms. Served me very well. Needed lots of dough spent on it to get it working really well again - mainly gearbox and body work (respray because of delaminating paint - after 18 years!!). All the suspension bushes needed replacing; etc; etc. Couldn't see myself throwing all that money at a car that didn't really suit my needs from day one - much as I liked it!

So traded it on the 2006 5MT/DR Forester. Love it!

Having looked over the XV since, I wouldn't jump over any MY06-MY10 Forester to get to an XV. Nearly as big as my Fox; nearly as heavy; nearly as under-powered as the SF and my Impreza; no DR ...

Some friends bought an XV (without asking my opinion), only to discover that the highly raked front pillar creates a huge blind spot ... Otherwise they are happy with it. One look told me that I wouldn't be ...
 
When I start my Foz from cold, there's a slight ticking noise which goes away after a few seconds - this means I need to adjust the tappets, right?
 
It seem like tappets could need adjusting. However you can never really be sure until you actually open it up and start measuring.

Does anyone have a list of tappet clearance specs for different Subaru engines? Particularly Ej 20/25 ?
 
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