05-22-2018, 08:54 PM
Some of you don't trust anyone to work on your bike. I don't have enough knowledge to do the more difficult bits of maintenance, and so I have to to trust others to do it. Luckily, I think, I have a good mechanic and I took my bike to him today to do a valve clearance check.
My bike has done nearly 87,000 kms (54,000 miles) and the valve clearances have been checked 5 times prior to this. I missed one scheduled check on the basis that there'd never been a problem and reports here and elsewhere that the service frequency is too high.
I asked the mechanic to tell me what the observed clearances were so I could report them here. They were:
Ex: .25 .33 .30 .30 .25 .30 .33 .28 (spec .28 +-.03). Two were out of spec.
In: .18 .18 .18 .18 .15 .18 .18 .20 (spec .15 +-.03) One was out of spec.
The mechanic 'pulled the cams' and returned the lot to spec on the basis that there was no point in not doing them all while the cams were out. I may well be wrong, but that seems reasonable to me. The cost of shims was all of $AU1.50.
I hope this adds to the knowledge base on this issue. For me, it seems that checking from time to time is sensible as it appears they do go out of spec.
My bike has done nearly 87,000 kms (54,000 miles) and the valve clearances have been checked 5 times prior to this. I missed one scheduled check on the basis that there'd never been a problem and reports here and elsewhere that the service frequency is too high.
I asked the mechanic to tell me what the observed clearances were so I could report them here. They were:
Ex: .25 .33 .30 .30 .25 .30 .33 .28 (spec .28 +-.03). Two were out of spec.
In: .18 .18 .18 .18 .15 .18 .18 .20 (spec .15 +-.03) One was out of spec.
The mechanic 'pulled the cams' and returned the lot to spec on the basis that there was no point in not doing them all while the cams were out. I may well be wrong, but that seems reasonable to me. The cost of shims was all of $AU1.50.
I hope this adds to the knowledge base on this issue. For me, it seems that checking from time to time is sensible as it appears they do go out of spec.