I recently purchased a 1995 RV with a C series 250hp Cummins C8.3 diesel pusher. The maintenance procedure calls for an initial valve clearance adjustment @ 24,000 and every 48,000 thereafter. The RV only has 40,000 miles on it and I don't see that 24,000 adjustment listed as performed on the vehicle's maintenance log that came with it. Although I consider myself handy and mechanically inclined, I'm not sure if I want to attempt this myself.

To get this procedure completed, would you recommend taking it to an RV dealor, Camping World, or should I bite the bullet and take it to a diesel-semi repair shop? My RV dealor is extremely expensive, Camping World scares me (might have a high school kid doing service), so what would the majority opinion be on the best way to have this done? Thanks.

If you dont feel comfortable doing it, I would take it to a decent truck shop, or preferably a Cummins dealer.

Personally, I wouldn't be too concerned with adjusting the valves. That motor is pretty much bullet proof. I would only adjust if the valves get loud. But if you can't sleep at night I would recommend going to a reputable truck shop. Or, if you want to do it yourself, cummins sells a good manual for their engines that is readilly available to the general public at any place that sells genuine Cummins parts.

i think the specs for the engine are 0.014" IN, 0.027" EX... should be a 12v engine being a 95.. the valves are easy to set... pop the valve cover off and see how it looks, how easy to get at it is, and you'll be able to check some of the valves right there, and see how close they are. if they are close, leave them...

I agree, it is not a hard procedure but you'll probably pay a lot for it. While you're in there, you probably want to set the injector timing too if I remember right. It is not hard to do, main thing is rotating the engine right for each cylinder.

We have the 8.3L in one of our machines, the valve adjustment isn't that hard. I have a tool to turn the engine over with a ratchet. This makes the job much easier! There should be a plug somewhere I think near the fuel pump where the tool goes. I can't remember the procedure step by step,but its pretty easy. My advice would be to go to a Cummins dealer and buy the little tool and see if they could copy the pages you need from a service manual. Dealers have done this for us in the past ,no problem. We used to adjust our valves once a year on all our machines, but we stopped doing it because after the break-in, they never went out of adjustment. Those 8.3's are really tough! Ours runs full throttle ,morning till night , everyday for the last 5 years. The head gasket went at about 4500 hours but besides that, no problems. If you decide to do it yourself, have fun.-Matt