Volvo D12 - valve clearance adjustment intervals 12mths or 800hrs?

jfm

jfm

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This is a question to those who have or know about Volvo D12 engines. Specifically, it's about adjusting the tappets/valve clearances .

We have 2x D12 EVC motors (2004). Volvo manual says adjust valve/tappet clearances at the 200hrs first service, then every 800hrs. Sounds sensible. But elsewhere in the manual it includes adjusting the valves/tappets in a list of things to be done every 12months. Which doesn't sound sensible.

We do 200hrs/year and I'm booking the annual engine service now. The boat is 3years/600hrs old. The service guy (Monaco Marine in S of Fr) is narked becuase I am saying dont adjust the valves till 1000hrs on hour meters, whereas he is pointing to the "every 12 months" paragraph. I'm saying that para must be a mistake, becuase running hours have lots to do with valves needing adjustment but the passage of 12 months hasn't.

My question is, what do other folks with D12s do? What do your service people do/recommend? I seem to remember Peters Chichester saying the every 12 mths bit of the manual was a mistake, and they do them every 800hrs.

I care about this becuase on our boat doing the valve clearances requires dimantling the saloon furniture and pulling the saloon floor up...
 
We have slightly older D12s with EDCs but I dont remember the guy I used doing valve clearances when I asked him to do a full (everything) service when we took over the boat.
That was at about 300 hours

Probably no help but.....

BTW we have to lift the floor regularly - even to get at the header tanks to check the coolant.

A more significant problem we have is access to the port engine seawater impeller - virtually impossable so we remove the pump completly just to get at it.
 
We have 2XD12 715s EVC...
Just had annual service carried out by VP - only 100hrs logged.
Valve clearance to be done after next 100hrs or this time next year (whichever comes first).
 
Thanks. So that's the first bedding down valve clearance adjustment, which the book clearly says you need. It looks like your guys are ignoring the 12month rule, as they are doing that adjustment at 24months/200hrs, not 12 months, which seems very sensible to me, good on em.

Do you happen to know what do they plan to do after the first occasion they adjust the valve clearances? Do it again every 12mths, or every 800hrs?

Since my post above I called SAL in Lymington and Motortech in Port Solent and they said they do them every 12months regardless of how illogical that seems. SAL said that they hardly ever need any actual adjustment... I also found on the net a Volvo official workshop manual for a D12 truck chassis and this said adjust valve clearances every 12 months regardless of the truck's mileage!
 
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Do you happen to know what do they plan to do after the first occasion they adjust the valve clearances? Do it again every 12mths, or every 800hrs?


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Nope, but I intend to find out.
I will pm you.
SV2
 
I guess he's narked as its a two man job and a good earner for him. I've done this on our local twin D12 highspeed taxi boat, and the plastic valve cover is quite deep so you need a lot of clearance to get it off, then you need a special tool that fits into the bell housing and engages with the flywheel and a big ratchet to inch the motor round to check the valves, you need one guy to wind the motor round and one sprawled over the top to reach the valves, its not a fun job. This engine also has injector pumps for each injector driven by the camshaft too, and these need checking and adjusting, I can't remember the interval maybe every 1000hrs?
 
Yup, his quote is €500 additional to the basic cost of the service, for doing valve clearances. Some of that is time spent getting access, as opposed to doing the actual tappets

It's Monaco Marine near Nice airport France. Actually I think they're a very decent crowd and would recommend them. Labour rates are €46 & €31 per hour for mechanic and apprentice, repsectively - they break out the cost, everything, in detail on their invoices, down to every last O ring. The labour rates seem ok to me
 
The 12 months interval is definitely a nonsense, though...
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on our boat doing the valve clearances requires dimantling the saloon furniture and pulling the saloon floor up...

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...this sounds like another nonsense, either. Not something Fairline should be proud of, imho.
 
hi there im new here but have done loads of work on d12 a/b/c/d in trucks and have all facts and bits in volvo workshop books if you need to know anything also we have vehicles in excess of 1 millon kms that have never been touched at all just routine oil changes etc
 
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