| Author | Message | ||
     Duanelr |
It was tough, for me. I made several mistakes, did a couple of things right, and learned a lot. Here are just the highlights. 1. I read lots of previous posts here on BadWeather; people were critical of hanging the frame/bike from a ratchet strap. In fact though, it worked well for me. 2. I removed the forks for easy access to the front valve cover. This was a good decision. 3. I measured the valve clearance with my feeler gauges between the follower and the cam-lobe. WRONG. It's suppose to be measured between the follower and the shim. Stop--go back--do it again. 4. Page 1-45 in the service manual shows the wrong orientation of the intake "follower spacer" How does everyone know this except me? I wasted three hours trying to fit the valve cover before I figured it out. I had been reading about this procedure for over a year. How did I miss this? 4. To fit the rear valve cover, the engine needs to be raised in-place for the left side to fit under the wire harness.. THEN.. it needs to be lowered for the right side to fit under the right hand frame. 5. Still I kinked the valve-cover-seal, and when I ran the engine, oil poured from the rear valve cover. What a fscking mess. Stop--go back--do it all again. 6. I removed the shock and rear fuel injector to make room when installing the rear valve cover. 7. My Harley dealers suck when purchasing new shims. I now have Moose Racing, KTM, and Harley shims in my valve train. This is not an issue, but driving all around Portland OR to find them was a pain. 8. Fscking "K-Brackets". They attach to both engine and frame. I was soooo careful removing and re-applying. The bolts are steel and the frame's threads are aluminum. "BE CAREFUL", I was telling myself. I always go slow, use a torque-wrench and use anti-seize cream, but the threads in the frame stripped anyway. This is another whole topic for later. 9. My bike has 42,000 miles on it and this is it's first valve adjust. Please save your criticism for later.. I know. So I was pleasantly surprised they weren't extremely out of spec. Go figure. 10. I made an Excel Spread sheet based on the work-sheet in the back of the manual. It did the calculations and automatically filled in the pertinent fields. (I triple checked the math to be sure) It was handy.   (Message edited by duanelr on August 23, 2019) (Message edited by duanelr on August 23, 2019) | ||
| Pdksh |
You did much better than me, I didn’t pinch a valve cover (very common) but... Somehow a shim popped out after my first adjustment, I suspect I messed up when I measured the lash or didn’t have the shim seated properly. Things went bad fast. After a couple of rides the bike started making a loud chatter on the top end. Hard to distinguish loud valve train on the Rotax. Before I had a chance to tear into the motor it stopped dead. The shim slipped out and interfered with the running engine top end. Not Good. I ended up replacing the front cylinder head, piston, jug and timid chain. I did order a HotCams shim set for about 50 dollars. Much easier than dealing with my local stealer.   | ||
| 1_mike |
pdksh - Be VERY couscous, unless they've (Hot Cams shims) changed, the Hot Cams shims are too soft. They WILL wear faster than "original" EBR/Buell shims. I also found this the difficult way. Nothing was hurt, but had to remove the ones I used because of early wear in a VERY short time frame from its last adjustment. OEM parts only for me..! Especially parts that are subject to high load wear...like valve shims. If you can scratch the shims with new 600 grit sand paper, that are too soft. Buell shims will NOT scratch with 600 grit sand paper..! Your money, your bike... Mike | ||
| Duanelr |
Brian, those are some impressive pictures. I had a shim pop off the top of a valve, too. (The spacers were out at that point) I was turning the engine over slowly by hand, concentrating on another valve, when one of the followers slipped off the top of the valve, exposing the shim, launching it like a bullet into the sky. I heard a fast "snap tick tick" and saw the valve without its follower in place, the shim was gone. It put the fear of god in me. I know the repercussions of loosing a shim in the engine. Luckily I found it in the pool of oil next to a cam. I GOT LUCKY. |
