Tappet tool for Land Rover

Let's see I've been a Land Rover owner for a zillion years now and done dozens of tappet adjustments over those years. All with a screwdriver and a half inch combo wrench. Those screwdrivers have always been a sloppy fit in the slot on the tappet and made the job worse than it could be.

Well I finally made a tool to help with all that fiddley stuff. And here's how;

Starting off I measured the screw thread diameter on the tappet adjuster, I came up with 5/16" or 8mm will give a good fit. The nut is 1/2" or 13mm. 

Next I dug up a short piece of 5/16" ID tubing and test fit it.

I had an old screwdriver that had seen better days(the tip had been bent) and sought to utilize it for this tool. The blade was wider than the 5/16 hole so it needed some grinding down to slid through.

The blade also needed some grinding down on the previously bent tip to make it a tight fit in the slot on the tappet screw.

Once I had the fit I wanted I needed to center the blade in the tube. This was accomplished by cutting small strips of foam and shoving it in each end in equal amounts to center things.

At this point I want to mention that the blade needs to be recessed a tad from the open end. You don't want to be undoing the nut and have the blade lifted off messing up your gap.

OK, OK,   I cleaned it up and tested the fit. I will be the first to say my welds look like cr*p, but I just want them to stick.

Here is how it should look with the 1/2" combo on the nut.

And to show the tube is not in the way of turning the wrench;

Did you know the Land Rover 2.25 engines are .010 gap hot or cold and the 200TDI is .008? With this tool it should make it quicker to set the gap as there should not be any play in the slot and the blade will always be centered over the tappet.

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