EMERGENCY question on Valve Adjustment -please help!

[tberk@mindspring.com (T Berk)]

Robbie Cotner wrote:
> 
> Alright, here's the long story short:  I have two JH 1.8's, one has
> bad rings yet perfectly adjusted valves, and the other has GREAT
> compression but all the exhaust valves are out of adjustment.  Already
> tried shim swapping, can't get it right still. So can I take the cam
> and all the shims out of the motor with the bad rings yet perfect
> valve adjustment, and put them into the engine with good compression
> in the exact same order?  The head's are SLIGHTLY different, one is an
> '83 and one an '84, the part numbers are the same except for the
> letter at the end:  026 103 373F and the '83 is 026 103 373H.  Is that
> a problem?Head swapping is NOT an option due to the fact that I don't
> want to have to port and polish again-  please help, on Friday I have
> to have my Scirocco out of the garage to get to a family reunion.
> 
> thanks so much to any who may reply,
> 
> Rob
> 
> ----



My quick replay is get a head gasket and swap them as whole units.

This is based on the short time frame part of the equation. 

My more studious answer is swapping shims and cam to another head will
measure out with different values due in part to it being a 'new' head.

Or, get more shims. (You should have _some_ that are what you need, you
only then need a few to fill in the blanks.)

How's that sound?

TBerk