Valve stem heights?

[bigal389]

Ok i have a bit of a problem. A customer brought me a Tj with a valve rattle, a valve job had been done sometime back and it has had the rattle ever since. He had someone else replace the cam and lifters with melling and sealed power or so I was told. So taking his word, I pulled the valve cover and checked the rocker arms and push rods. 7 pushrods were extremely loose, so I check preload on I'll of them. The ones that were loose had anywhere from .005-.015 preload so I pull the rockers off and check valve stem height and they're all over the place. From the tallest two there was anywhere from .010-.080 difference. Shoddy workmanship to say the least. He doesn't want to pull the head and replace the valves. So either I will have to get different length pushrods for each valve, adjustable rockers or adjustable pushrods. I know the geometry will be off but he insists on one of these routes. What would you do?
Al

[jsawduste]

Tell him take it to another shop. You don't want customers like that.

[bigal389]

That's what I'm thinking as well. For some reason he doesn't want me to pull the head and do it right.
Al

[Russ Pottenger]

Hi Al,

I definitely agree with what John said.
I've always told my customers " Time is money and Money is time"

You could spend just as much of their money charging them for your time, and it still wouldn't be correct.
Or maybe another way of putting it, cutting corners inevitably doesn't cut costs.

[bigal389]

Russ that's what I told him in a nutshell. I just couldn't make him see that the cost would be nearly the same as trying to engineer some to get rid of his rattling.
Al