10-01-2023, 02:48 PM
This question may be more applicable to those of you who perform your own valve adjustments, especially if your like me, and not real quick at performing a repair that you have either never performed before, of maybe haven't performed in several years:
My bike has 32,000 miles, and while I have inspected the valve clearances once, they were all in spec, and I have never performed an adjustment. I plan to go to 50,000 miles before I perform my next valve clearance inspection.
The specification for our valve clearances are: Intake = .006 +/- .001, Exhaust = .011 +/- .001. How far out-of-spec are you willing to allow your valves to get before you perform an adjustment? It's a significant amount of work just to inspect the valve clearances on these bikes, but the labor probably triples, or more, if you actually have to remove the cams to perform an adjustment. I'm thinking about letting my valves exceed the maximum tolerance by .001 before I actually perform an adjustment. To clarify, if my intake valve measured .004 (.001 below the minimum recommended clearance of .005) I'll let it go. If it goes to .003, then I will definitely adjust it. What do you think? Am I risking engine damage by allowing the valve clearance to go .001 inch below the recommended minimum clearance? Some members of this forum have stated that they don't plan to ever adjust the valves on their bikes, but I definitely don't support this reasoning.
I have been deliberately adjusting the valves on my Toyota truck .002 tighter than the nominal specification for the past 200,000 miles with no issues, but that's a different story.
My bike has 32,000 miles, and while I have inspected the valve clearances once, they were all in spec, and I have never performed an adjustment. I plan to go to 50,000 miles before I perform my next valve clearance inspection.
The specification for our valve clearances are: Intake = .006 +/- .001, Exhaust = .011 +/- .001. How far out-of-spec are you willing to allow your valves to get before you perform an adjustment? It's a significant amount of work just to inspect the valve clearances on these bikes, but the labor probably triples, or more, if you actually have to remove the cams to perform an adjustment. I'm thinking about letting my valves exceed the maximum tolerance by .001 before I actually perform an adjustment. To clarify, if my intake valve measured .004 (.001 below the minimum recommended clearance of .005) I'll let it go. If it goes to .003, then I will definitely adjust it. What do you think? Am I risking engine damage by allowing the valve clearance to go .001 inch below the recommended minimum clearance? Some members of this forum have stated that they don't plan to ever adjust the valves on their bikes, but I definitely don't support this reasoning.
I have been deliberately adjusting the valves on my Toyota truck .002 tighter than the nominal specification for the past 200,000 miles with no issues, but that's a different story.