Adjusting the Intake & Exhaust Valves on a TaoTao Engine

Checking Valve Clearance/Valve Adjustment

If you have had your machine for a long time or you notice your machine just isn’t running right it might be time for a valve adjustment.

1. You are going to want to make sure that you have the engine cool and at TDC (top dead center) when you are adjusting the valves. To accomplish this you will need to uncover the cam gear on the side of the head (saucer shaped cap on the side of the head) that will be held on on the opposite side of the head by a 10MM bolt, along with the service caps on the left hand side of the engine to reveal the fly wheel.
2. Take a 14MM socket and watch the timing marks on the cam gear and the fly wheel. The dot with the letter “JD” by it will need to split the two head bolts (1 on top and one on bottom). Check the top of the fly wheel, there should be a letter “T” that you can see through the top service cap hole. If these timing marks do not match up turn the engine one more time to make sure you weren’t on the wrong stroke. If the marks still don’t coincide with one another then your engine needs to be timed.(Covered elsewhere)
3. Once you have made sure that your engine is at TDC you will want to take off the valve covers. These will be the two 17 MM caps that thread into the head, one on tope (intake) and one on bottom (exhaust).
4. Grab the rocker and try and tap it on the head of the valve. One of three things will happen here, one you will be able to move the rocker ever so slightly which is what you want. You don’t want it to be super tight but also not super lose at the same time. Two you will be able to tap the rocker on the valve head meaning the valves are loose, or you won’t be able to move the rocker at all indicating that the valves are tight. Either way if the valves are loose or tight use your feeler gauge (.07MM exhaust & intake) to set them to the correct clearance.
5. There is a valve adjustment tool that can make adjusting the valves much easier but if you don’t have this you can do it with a wrench and needle nose. Loosen the jam nut on the pin (normally a 9mm jam nut) and turn the pin to the correct clearance. It should pinch the feeler gauge, you should be able to slide it through but you also want it to drag a little bit. Tighten jam nut to spec,
6. Once you get the valves set to the correct spec you are now ready to button the machine back up and start it and make sure you don’t get any flaws in your work. The most important thing is to make sure you are always at TDC when adjusting of messing with the valves. As long as you emphasize getting to TDC this will be a cake walk for you and you should see some improvements if you were having issues with hard starting especially.