Valve Adjustments, have you had it done?

[CanadianFZ6]

You can't buy a new engine or a new FZ6 for $400....

I'm a professional mechanic by trade, and I hear similar arguments all the time - I can't afford XXX reapir, or the car isn't worth XXX repair. Unfortunately, many of the same people also cannot afford the expense of a new vehicle. So, in this situation, the money for the repair is money well spent.

In any case, here's an idea: find a local message board for sportbike enthusiasts. In many cases, you can find a competent shade-tree bike mechanic that will perform the adjustment for a reasonable parts and labor cost.

Here's another quick story - I rebuilt a 1982 Suzuki GS650G for my buddy that had 26000mi and the valves had never been adjusted. Compression numbers for all 4 cylinders were around 125 to 130psi. When I checked the valves, I had to drop 2 shim sizes on several of the valves to get them in spec. After the adjustment, the engine was producing around 150psi on all 4 cylinders. He got lucky because the valves were not burned and sealed well after the adjustment.

In many cases, as valves go out of adjustment, they produce VERY gradual power decreases that may not be noticeable by the average rider. However, in the end, the power decrease can be very significant, sapping over 10hp from an engine and dreacreasing the bike's top speed by over 15mph!

Please understand that I do not wish to be a d*** to you for grins and giggles - you are an MSF instructor, and your opinion on things relative to bikes necessarily carries more weight than joe average rider. Many new riders come to this board looking for solid advice, and when they hear that you deem it acceptable to neglect valve adjustments, they may assume it's ok to neglect said maintenance on their bikes.

Like it or not, you're a role model....

To prove that I'm not an acerbic horse's a**, if you were ever in my part of town, I'd offer to do the adjustment for you for FREE - all you have to do is buy the necessary shims.

Very few mechanics past the competency test... Maybe you're one of the good ones... Other than aviation mechanics (where peoples lives are at stake), most bike dealer mechanics are so incompetent (poorly trained or just don't care), I chose to learn to do most maintenance items myself. At least I will know it will be done right... I won't rag just on mechanics, because incompetency in general seems to be the norn rather than the exception now days...

 

[Downs]

It's a very good point. There's no way to know for sure that the mechanic actually did the work. It's one of the reasons i usually don't jack with dealerships past mounting and balancing tires. That's something easy to inspect.


Sent from my iPhone

 

[hazy]

Just have my valve clearance checked by the dealer with 51,000km.Only one exhaust valve was on the loose side with CCT changed as well for precautionary sake.

 

[Guitar Man]

Definitely worth doing. I'm on my 2nd FZ and did the check at around 27K.

All 4 exhaust valves were out of spec on the #3 and #4 cylinders.

#3's were .019 .016 Corrected to .011 .010
#4's were .025 .021 Corrected to .011 .010

It was crazy that they were all off that far. And .025? That's crazy! The only thing I can think of is it came from the factory that way. There's no way that anything could have just caused that to happen. At least it wasn't too close so no need to worry about burning valves. You still have to remember that even though Yamaha's quality control is probably pretty good you still have human beings building these machines.

I could tell a noticable difference in performance after they were adjusted correctly. The valves were only opening for a short period of time and were probably not able to evacuate all of the exhaust gasses effectively. I'm pretty sure this affected the performance.

I do 99% of all my work and don't trust shops. I'm an aircraft mechanic and anything that needs to be done on these bikes is pretty simple to accomplish for me. I recieve the gratification of knowing I did the job well and when I whak the throttle and feel that well tuned running engine I can say, "Yeah......I did that."

 

[SovietRobot]

Definitely worth doing. I'm on my 2nd FZ and did the check at around 27K.

All 4 exhaust valves were out of spec on the #3 and #4 cylinders.

#3's were .019 .016 Corrected to .011 .010
#4's were .025 .021 Corrected to .011 .010

It was crazy that they were all off that far. And .025? That's crazy! The only thing I can think of is it came from the factory that way. There's no way that anything could have just caused that to happen. At least it wasn't too close so no need to worry about burning valves. You still have to remember that even though Yamaha's quality control is probably pretty good you still have human beings building these machines.

I could tell a noticable difference in performance after they were adjusted correctly. The valves were only opening for a short period of time and were probably not able to evacuate all of the exhaust gasses effectively. I'm pretty sure this affected the performance.

I do 99% of all my work and don't trust shops. I'm an aircraft mechanic and anything that needs to be done on these bikes is pretty simple to accomplish for me. I recieve the gratification of knowing I did the job well and when I whak the throttle and feel that well tuned running engine I can say, "Yeah......I did that."

Are those measurements in inches? If so according to google .025inch is .635mm, where the spec calls for .23-.30mm!
That's very interesting, my exhaust valves at 22k are at most .31mm on 3 of the 4 cylinders


A word to everyone: If possible don't waste your money on one of those premade shim kits.
I needed 6 shims of the same size however the kit only came with 3, and I had no need for all of the other hundreds of shims in the kit.

 

[VEGASRIDER]

By the way if any member missed it, I finally got my valves checked.

http://www.600riders.com/forum/fz6-general-discussion/43948-its-time-77k-valve-adjusments.html

 

[Clay350]

Does anyone see any point to getting them checked at 500 miles like the manual recommends? I do think checking them after an engine has broken in has some merit?

 

[ChevyFazer]

I thought the 1st recommended valve check was around 24k? And I have yet to have herd anybody say that when they had them checked at that point that anything was out of spec. So I see no point in having them checked at 500.

 

[Marthy]

I don't quite understand why it's such a big deal about checking valve adjustment. If you can change your spark plug 80% of the job is done! 5mm allen wrench to pop the valve cover off and all you need is a feller gauge. 4 x 1/2 turn on the cam and you're done. Adjusting it might required a bit more skills... but still not that hard.

I remember one of the member onthe 6R forum send his bike to the stealership. He did put paint mark on his valve cover previously... When he went to pick up his bike and the paint wasn't even broken apart he went fkn nuts! He said that he sat there by the bike watching the crooked tech redo it in front of him... Don't trust lazy tech guy who hate his under pay job...

I know my stealership... if you don't roll there with a R1 with 5K of mod on it they won't even care of talk to you. Imagine going there with my 6R... They look at me like I have a scooter.

 

[Downs]

Does anyone see any point to getting them checked at 500 miles like the manual recommends? I do think checking them after an engine has broken in has some merit?

IIRC if I'm reading my manual properly there isn't a break-in valve check. First one is at 26k or some such number.

 

[Dresnewtoy]

Could someone make a video tutorial of their next valve clearance check??? That would be really helpful for some of us slow learners.

 

[Guitar Man]

Are those measurements in inches?

Yes. Those measurements are in inches.

For example. .011 is 11 thousands of an inch. Basically just a hair over 1/10th of 1/10th of an inch. I saw the specs in the maintenance manual for reference.

 

[pointbreak]

Checked my valve clearances today.
Mileage is 52500 (not KMs). FZ6 Fazer 2008 S2.
The thought of stripping bike down and removing the cylinder head cover felt intimidating but with info on this forum and the service manual I did it and feel really satisfied.
Yamaha Fazer FZ6 S2 2007 Service Manual ENG, Page 3-4, Adjusting the valve clearance.

I had dealer do this at 26000 miles and it cost GBP150.00. So I've saved this money and the process made me check the other components.

With the throttle bodies off I cleaned the throats (with carb cleaner) which had some black residue around where the butterfly is in the closed position.

I had a set of metric feeler gauges in 0.05mm increments and started low and went thicker.
I see others results which seem to show the exact gap. How is this achieved?

I've attached my results.

 

[pointbreak]

Clearance on cylinder #1 for intake is looking a bit tight. I decided to leave this as even though I couldn't get 0.15mm feeler gauge in I might have been able to get 0.13mm in if one existed. I fear you are all going to say it needs a new valve pad now to open it up a little.
Exhaust cam lobe 4B could take 0.30mm with a fair bit of effort.

 

[Guitar Man]

I fear you are all going to say it needs a new valve pad now to open it up a little.

As long as it hasn't gone to zero and there is some kind of gap in there you won't need a new valve pad. Take your smallest guage and see if it will go in. If it does you have nothing to worry about and it only needs to be adjusted.

 

[pointbreak]

Thanks.
0.10mm went under.
0.15mm would not go under.
Minimum gap required is 0.13mm.
So I have a gap of at least 0.10mm.
Maybe it is at 0.13mm - I was going to say if I had that thickness gauge I would have known and then it dawned on me that I could have used a 0.10 and a 0.03 together. This might help someone else.
Never thought of putting two or more feeler gauges together.

 

[regder]

In the process of checking mine now for the first time at 52k miles, 83k km. Well checked them, but still have to finish putting it back together.

All of them are still in spec, will update later with the numbers. One exhaust valve is close, at .229 but I left it as is

 

[88atlas07]

I checked mine a few days ago at 27000 miles and all are in spec, infact all are in the middle of the range. I decided to check it myself because was quoted $600 from a dealership to just check them (not adjust), and as I will be going on a 3500 mile round trip to Texas from DC and back in July, I wanted the peace of mind that the bike was in tip top shape.

2005 fz6

 

[adberns]

Out of curiosity, what are people's driving styles - high RPM shifts, low RPM, etc. Just looking to see if this has anything to do with valve specs.

 

[n0other]

As long as it hasn't gone to zero and there is some kind of gap in there you won't need a new valve pad. Take your smallest guage and see if it will go in. If it does you have nothing to worry about and it only needs to be adjusted.

What do you mean by "needs to be adjusted", what other pads can there be except the valve shims, which need replacing when you're adjusting clearance?

If you need a thinner shim, some shops in my area can machine sand your old ones to the specified thickness, that's loads cheaper than buying a shim kit and you don't have to wait for it. There are people who sanded them at home using "custom" methods to great effect, but I wouldn't attempt that myself.

I'm preparing for a valve check, will do everything in one go - sparks, filters, oil, coolant change and valves, haven't done that before so just crawling info now. Good to know most bikes don't need adjustment - mine's at 28.5k mls now.