Ain't Fixes His Arkansas Damage

[BobAin'tStoppin']

Grumpy, no email received but the job is done now. The video is pretty good with one silly thing I'll point out below. For anyone who wants to check valve clearances, the job is straight forward if you have done mechanical work before. If you haven't then you'll have to do your own risk/reward evaluation.

Removal of the valve cover involves taking off the plastic plug wire cover and injector cover. Then pull the ignition coil off. It would be great to have the special tool, but I don't, so I used channel lock pliers. Just be very careful not to slip and gouge up the plastic. Use a twisting and pulling motion.

Don't forget to put an oil pan under the cover before removing the three fasteners! With the cover off, you'll see this:



With both cylinders ready as in the picture, you now want to move one cylinder to the correct position for adjustment. See the flats on the end of the cam shafts? They need to be aligned in a straight line with the forward intake cam lobe pointing at your face (about 10 o'clock looking at the right cylinder). Should have taken a pic of that . . . sorry.

In turning the engine to the correct spot the video says to stick a straw into the spark plug hole so you know when approaching TDC. Not necessary. Just look at that top intake cam lobe. Use a straight edge along the flats on the end of the two cams and your set.

The specs in the post above are what I used. In inches it's intake 0.004-0.0067 and exhaust 0.013-0.016. You don't need to be too picky about the exact number. What's important is that they all agree with each other. If all the intakes (or exhaust) are different you'll get vibration. If they are all matching you get a smoother engine.

My valves checked out really well. All the intakes are at 0.006 and the exhausts are about 0.014 or 5. I have two sets of feeler gauges, both the same manufacturer (OEM) and model, but they read almost .001 different. Go figure, so I just use both and make a decision as to what I think is the real value. As I said above, it's just not that critical as long as the valves match and are in range. Note that you don't need to use the two feeler gauge system that we did on the hex heads. They had one cam lobe operating two valves. Here we have one valve per lobe, so they can be checked one at a time.

These wet heads have interesting cam drive design:


What does this thing do? Maybe compression release?


Here's a pic of the spark plugs at 8,600 miles:


Putting things back together is pretty straight forward. I always use some of the silver anti seize paste on the plug threads. Some people think this is a terrible thing to do, but I'm not in that camp. I also use some dielectric grease on the coil rubber to ease getting it out next time.

Please don't be ham fisted putting these little fasteners up tight. Get them snug and then stop! Or use a torque wrench if you like.

So the bike is now back together and ready to roll:


As I said at the start, if you do your own work, this is not a big deal. If you've never done any mechanics, then I'd suggest having an assistant around the first time you open up this part of the bike. I expect most of us will never have to adjust these valves. Doing shimmed valves is not difficult. You just have to be very careful and write all your numbers down. Then check the clearance after re-assembly. Sometimes it takes two attempts before the results are what you expect. If I ever do it on this bike, I'll be sure to take some video. I do have a short one from my FJ-09 adjustment and it was fun to make.