Checking valve clearances

[the Ferret]

It's funny but Randy B on this forum iirc had his checked at 8,000 miles by his dealer and 12 of the 16 were supposedly out of adjustment. I have often wondered if his mechanic knew what he was doing, or if they just said that to justify charging him a bunch of money?

I'm at 69,000 miles, no checks or adjustments yet.

[max]

It's funny but Randy B on this forum iirc had his checked at 8,000 miles by his dealer and 12 of the 16 were supposedly out of adjustment. I have often wondered if his mechanic knew what he was doing, or if they just said that to justify charging him a bunch of money?

I'm at 69,000 miles, no checks or adjustments yet.

Thanks for pointing this out Ferret et all, thanks to this forum and collective entries from our understanding members we have gathered a slew of facts that guide the knowledge base of our bikes independent and some times in opposition to dealer's statements.

And of course there is no substitute for experience, thank you all.

[PowerDubs_imp]

It's funny but Randy B on this forum iirc had his checked at 8,000 miles by his dealer and 12 of the 16 were supposedly out of adjustment. I have often wondered if his mechanic knew what he was doing, or if they just said that to justify charging him a bunch of money?

I'm at 69,000 miles, no checks or adjustments yet.

Pretty easy to screw up, or 2nd guess due to the angles needed with engine in frame.

Of course when I did mine, it was completely different due to the new cams, everything changed much that I triple checked twice.


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[peterbaron]

Depending on a shop size, there might be 1-2 knowledgeable mechanics and usually a real professional is honest when diagnosing, pricing and doing his job.
If you have a professional like that = stick with him forever with your bike or car.
Don't let a stranger dig in your machine even at a discount price or for free, never!!
.

[GoldOxide_imp]

Some Honda CRF1000 owners with over 100000 kms have not had their valves adjusted. Here is where Honda might be strongest.

[Wisedrum]

Hey Haystack, was wondering what mileage you were up to now. Wonder what the highest miles on a CB is? I think someone on here said t ng ey were over 130,000 not too long ago.

I guess itsme has ridden the most miles on his CB.
Round about 300.000km. He wrote a lot about his CB in the German CB-Forum. But a year ago or so he suddenly disappeared after having bought a second bike, an African Twin, because he crashed his CB and planned to rebuild it. There are no infos, if he did it or not. He let a valve check do every now and then but not too often as reported on his webpage, which seems to be somehow down these days.

[Tev62]

Valve checks are often misunderstood by owners and possibly many dealer mechanics too. When a manufacturer gives a clearance range, say 0.14mm - 0.20mm they intend you to leave the shims well alone, if when measured, they are anywhere within that range including the outer limits. They are expecting another check at the next interval and have allowed for extra wear. They are not concerned on the next check if the value ends up at 0.12 or 0.23, they have allowed for this and that is when they expect you to change the shims.

There are plenty of owners and dealers who seem to think the middle value of 0.17 (in my example) is the ideal target gap and re-shim to that. Taking this approach will be the difference between taking the camshafts out every single service interval and possibly not taking them out for the next 100,000 miles.

[GoldOxide_imp]

I've read many posts that suggest, and some quoting garages regarding Hondas and any bike:

"Does it have difficultly starting and maintaining idle? Is there excessive top end noise? Does it backfire during acceleration/deceleration? If not, we'll reevaluate the service work maybe on the next visit."

[the Ferret]

The head tech at my shop who has been working on my bikes for 30 years says to go by symptoms as well. When I ask him if I should get them checked he asks... "Any unusual noises? Is it getting hard to start? Has your gas mileage gone down?" followed by "if you want I'll check them, but you are wasting your money"

[12milesout]

Picked mine up Thursday evening. I had asked for a breakdown of the clearances when i dropped it off, but didn't get one. Everything was in spec, but they didn't say what the observed clearances were. Total was $875; had I known that ahead of time, I probably would have opted to do it myself.

Labor: 5 hours @ 129.00 $645.00
Parts: 126.52
Shop supplies 38.06
waste disposal 12.90
tax 52.23

Total $874.71