I gave up with doing valve clearance adjustment on this car myself. Would take me to long in the heat. Save myself some frustration and time and just brought it to the Honda dealer after my independent shop turned down the work.
Got the car back from the dealership and I noticed a long Crank when attempting to start the car, almost like it wouldn’t start. But it eventually does. I noticed it again today, seems to only happen when it’s cold. Should I be concerned? I guess it’s possible it’s to tight? I could bring it back to the dealership, but afraid to do something and be a “come back”. I guess it’s possible maybe they didn’t put the spark plugs and coil packs all the way on, resulting in bad spark. But I doubt it. Any ideas?
This doesn’t happen every cold start, but twice sense I picked it up Thursday. It is driven at least once a day to a few times a day.
I didn’t start noticing this issue until after I picked it up. It happened the very first start up after picking up the car while still in the lot. I thought it was an anomaly and didn’t think much of it, but sense it has happened a second time, I’m starting to think otherwise.
Unrelated issue. The valve adjustment did not cause this.
Do the “key dance” to test the fuel pump. Key on without starting, key off, repeat 3-4 times. If it starts right up then this is a fuel problem. Either a weak pump, leaking check valve IN the pump, leaking pressure regulator or injector. A pressure retention test on the fuel system would reveal this as well.
You told dealer to set clearance to spec. Did work order say what they found? Valves may have been in spec and tech did nothing? You have to pay them to find out.
So I should do a fuel pressure test to see if it gets to and remains between 48 and 55 psi at idle?
There was no notes on what they found, which ones needed to be adjusted or how much, just that I was charged for the labor of 2.5 hours (much less time then it would take me) for the job and that’s it. So allegedly it was done. We supplied our own gasket set from rock auto.
Partially. You want to see if it reaches pressure to diagnose pump or pressure regulator AND then turn the engine off and see if the pressure holds. Quick startups come from having some residual fuel pressure in the system the next day. The pump then doesn’t have to bring fuel volume and pressure to the engine at the same time, only pressure.
hmmm … I have to say Yoshi, you have a knack of posting very perplexing problems … lol …
To check the valve clearances on my Corolla I have to remove the valve cover, then hand-rotate the crankshaft to a certain position, then measure the distance between the cam lobe and the lifter using a feeler gauge, then hand-rotate the crankshaft to the next position, feeler guage, etc etc, until all are measured. There are 2 intake and 2 exhaust valves per cylinder IIRC, so with 4 cylinders I end up with 16 measurements. Correcting a clearance problem involves changing a shim, a fairly complicated procedure which I’ve never had to do. After that, just reinstall the valve cover, usually use a new gasket. I think Hondas don’t use the shim method, instead there’s an adjusting fastener of some sort.
So in going over this, I don’t see anything that could cause hard starting other than an incorrect setting of a valve clearance, or possibly something associated w/removing and replacing the valve cover. Those are probably the first things I’d check. Frustrating, b/c that’s exactly what you didn’t want to do. Well, think of it this way, easier to measure valve than to adjust them. Check what’s attached to the valve cover as well, maybe a vacuum line was left disconnected.