Pontiac Grand Am Valve And Rod Adjustments

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Repair help on my 2001 Pontiac Grand Am.
Question = I have replaced the intake manifold gaskets. I want to know how to adjust the valves on the engine.

Hello and welcome.
This procedure is for the 3.1L and 3.4L in many Chevy, Buick, Pontiac and Oldsmobile models. Malibu, Classic, Lumina, Alero, Regal, Century, Grand Prix, Grand Am, Montana, Transport, Venture van, Silhouette, etc.
See this link...
Push Rod Locations Picture

1999 Pontiac Grand AM 3.8L.
I just had someone replace the intake manifold gasket and he now says that the car needs a valve adjustment. How much does it cost to have the valve adjustment done on this car.

Answer:
If you are sure you have the 3.8L engine (3800), there are no valve adjustments on this engine. There are no valve adjustments on the 3400 engine either. Both of these engines are just a matter of torquing the rocker arms to the proper specifications.

With that said, there should be no need to do any sort of adjustments after an intake gasket replacement any way. Not sure why the mechanic is telling you that.

Live Chat:

Question: What happens if the engine runs out of oil?
 Answer: A lot of things could happen. You could just have top and engine noise, or lower and knocking noise, burned or spun main, rod or camshaft bearings. Or the engine could just totally locked up.

Grand am 99 3.4,when is warm start stalling,fuel filter,spark plugs,air filter,wires,clean throttle body,adjust low idle,tight the head for leaks,no code
 Look at your idle control switch

Is it possible to bend the valves by over torqing the rocker arms?
 To bend these valves you would really have to run the bolts down hard, and the timing would have to be off so that they hit the top of the pistons. If you have not changed the timing by removing or replacing the timing chain, then the answer is no.

I have a 2000 pontiac grand am with a 3.4 and just paid a guy to replace the heads and lifters but there is a distinct lifter tap he did not replace the pushrods could that be the problem? He said it probably needs a cam but it was replaced about 50k miles ago when i had the engine rebuilt. It also seems to idle very low and misfire at idol i would appreciate any help.
 When he had the heads off, he should have looked at the cam. He needs to find out what is wrong instead of guessing. It could be a bad push rod, messed up the pushrod location, he screwed something up, missed something, or maybe the lifters just did not fully pump up yet. That can be caused by a bad lifter or it just has not run long enough. Sometimes it takes a while for all lifter to fully pump up.

i am not taking my car back to him .it is going to be up to me to fix this problem. He also told me he put cheap oil in it to" flush" it out and to change it after a h miles .i guess i will change the push rods and oil and hope i can find the problem any advise what to look for when i have the valvecovers off? Or any way to check for other problems.
 Well, then when you get the valve covers off, run the engine and use a stethescope to determine where the noise is coming from. You can also try pushing down on the rockers while running to see if you can change the noise. These things will tell you what cylinder is making the noise. That is, if it for sure is top end noise.