[Mentat Ix]

I was a little overdue and had my bike up on jacks to get some new rubber anyhow, so I did my valve adjustment today. It was a little more work than I anticipated. To get the the tappets you have to remove the gas tank, the throttle body, the intake manifold and some of the coolant hoses. The adjustment screws themselves you need a special tool for, as they're tiny square heads on the top. I made do with some needle nose pliers. I made do with a normal set of feeler gauges, but it probably would have been easier with some long ones. All in all, not too difficult with a shop manual in hand. It did take me most of the day.

Next time I might try to get away with leaving the coolant hoses and intake manifold on, though it will make it harder.

Bastards at the yammy dealer still don't have the tires I ordered on Friday, and I start my shift at work tomorrow. My bike is out of commission for the week. :'( Going to be riding the CBR with a jacked up front tire, I guess.

 

[sicontex]

Looks like a lot of work. I think I may end up paying to get mine done before painting bike.

 

[straightjacket]

Nice to see pics without having to pull the bike down! Looks like we have a common rocker for both valves? If so did you use two feeler gauges at one time? One at a time can give you a false adjustment. Usually need two sets of feelers to do an accurate job, and yes the long ones make it easier.

 

[Mentat Ix]

Nice to see pics without having to pull the bike down! Looks like we have a common rocker for both valves? If so did you use two feeler gauges at one time? One at a time can give you a false adjustment. Usually need two sets of feelers to do an accurate job, and yes the long ones make it easier.

Yeah, they're common rockers. I did not use two feeler gauges; I didn't know about that. :-[ Guess there could be a little flex from one side to the other, though... Well, hopefully I didn't jack them up too bad.

 

[canyon1]

Why 2 feeler guages at one time ? I can't visualize how one rocker arm can actuate 2 valves. I haven't done this yet but seems to me that each valve is opened by a separate cam lobe which would require 2 rocker arms. What did I miss ?

 

[straightjacket]

Cam has one lobe, rocker is a Y if you can picture that. Rocker splits into two arms with two tappet adjusters. The clearances in the parts can allow for the rocker to rock side to side if you are using one feeler gauge at a time. This will become more important as the bike gets older and has more clearance in the parts. If you check your adj after you finished you could see if it made a difference? If you cant put the correct feeler guage in both tappets at the same time your adj. is incorrect. If you are tight you can burn valves and cause dammage.

 

[Mentat Ix]

I don't know, man, getting in there to adjust them is about the limit of my technical knowledge. Alls I know is it appears that the rocker arms for both exhaust valves are one peice, and the same with the intake... Maybe SJ could help us understand this. I don't have my shop manual on hand right now, but I'm sure there's a good drawing that shows what going on.

 

[straightjacket]

Thats just the way I was taught, single rocker = 1feeler gauge, double rocker = 2 feeler gauges. I have not checked to see what our valve adj. specs are yet, but some bikes are for example .002-.004 intake, and .005-.007 exhaust. If you have a total of .002 of play in the rocker assembly and adj. one at a time your chasing the play. If you adj both at ounce, you remove the play and get a correct adj. This sounds like it is making sense when I'm typing, not allways good at explaining things though?

 

[Mentat Ix]

I'm pickin' up what you're layin' down. Though I can't imagine how you would get two feelers in there.

 

[straightjacket]

;D I didn't say it was easy? I have two sets of long feelers you can snug then let go of them & just leavem hangin.

 

[Mentat Ix]

Well, I finally got my wheels back and got the bike back together. I took it for a test ride and I have a couple of concerns.

One, the coolant situation. I drained the coolant into a clean bucket and when all was said and done I just put what I took out back into the radiator, minus the little bit I spilled. The reservoir is almost full to the top. I haven't checked it in months, to be honest, due to it being a pain in the ass. But I know it couldn't have started this project that way - I've never added any since I've had the bike. I know there's air in the system. I was hoping it would pull out of the reservoir as I rode it, but it didn't. Now I don't know if it's going to overheat when I ride it home tomorrow in 95* weather.

And two, I've got a lot more surging going on than what I had before. I had a lot of stuff apart, so I recon I'll have to check for air leaks first off. Maybe I got air in the fuel system? The spark plugs are still original, going to change those out next week.. Maybe I put the Cobra autotuner on opposite injectors, though the guys at Cobra assured me that doesn't matter... I'm pretty comfortable with the actual valve adjustment, even though I only did one side at a time. I quadruple checked those bastards, and the last time I checked them I took the min. and made sure they slid in really easy, then took the max and they wouldn't go in at all. I set them right in the middle, and I'm absolutely sure the **** things are somewhere in between.

Good news is, it rides smoother with the new tires. The last rear was poorly balanced, so that's a relief. And I finally got new pegs to replace the ones I ground off.

Any advise before I head off on my journey to work tomorrow?

 

[Mentat Ix]

Well, I had it sitting in my driveway checking for air leaks (didn't find any) when I got home the other day and the dang thing overheated. So, here's a heads up for everybody: the book says just add the specified amount of coolant and run, but you really do need to bleed the air out of the radiator.

There's no air bleed screw that I could find, though the dealership told me it should be around the thermostat. I ran it for a while with the radiator cap off and got coolant shooting out when I burped the throttle, but it did get that air out. Now I'm waiting for it to cool off so I can turn the hose on it. Stupid coolant stains everything blue.

I didn't find any air leaks, but I did put in new plugs and swapped the leads for the cobra autotuner. And I nixed the evap cannister while I was at it. We'll see how it goes.

 

[Vetteman86]

I was a little overdue and had my bike up on jacks to get some new rubber anyhow, so I did my valve adjustment today. It was a little more work than I anticipated. To get the the tappets you have to remove the gas tank, the throttle body, the intake manifold and some of the coolant hoses. The adjustment screws themselves you need a special tool for, as they're tiny square heads on the top. I made do with some needle nose pliers. I made do with a normal set of feeler gauges, but it probably would have been easier with some long ones. All in all, not too difficult with a shop manual in hand. It did take me most of the day.

Next time I might try to get away with leaving the coolant hoses and intake manifold on, though it will make it harder.



Bastards at the yammy dealer still don't have the tires I ordered on Friday, and I start my shift at work tomorrow. My bike is out of commission for the week. :'( Going to be riding the CBR with a jacked up front tire, I guess.

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Just curious what is that black box by the shifter?? I don't have that on my Stryker

 

[74novaguy]

Just curious what is that black box by the shifter?? I don't have that on my Stryker

That would be the emissions canister. only California model bikes have it. A hand full of states require it.

 

[Vetteman86]

Just curious what is that black box by the shifter?? I don't have that on my Stryker

That would be the emissions canister. only California model bikes have it. A hand full of states require it.

Ok thanks

 

[immortal13]

Yeah, I'm gonna be paying to have this little operation done.

 

[Skwerlee]

Yeah, I'm gonna be paying to have this little operation done.

yeah you and me both. you have any idea how much stuff i could mess up attempting something this involved?!? LOL

 

[Mentat Ix]

Its not really that hard. A few hoses, a few bolts. I'd say at worst you could cause an air leak or get the coolant air bound (like I did). The only really critical thing is keeping your workspace clean-ish so you don't drop anything in, and the valve adjustment itself, which is pretty easy relatively speaking. I would do this a dozen times before trying to mount a **** tire myself again (which I did on my CBR last week despite swearing to myself never again after the last time ).

The critical pieces like the FI system are pretty much plug in and go. The valve adjustment itself is just a 10mm wrench and a set screw. Make sure you read the book carefully. All the other adjustments I've done have been on thumpers, so it was a little strange having to set the TDC in different places for the cylinders. Don't mix up mm and in like I did on the first go around and set the gap 3x as wide as it should be :

Still, if you aren't comfortable dealing with whatever hickups pop up along the way, and you have cash laying around, and you don't mind having your bike in the shop for that long, or you're just worried about your warranty... then yeah, maybe this job isn't for you.

The problems I mentioned having were fixed by bleeding the air out of the radiator properly, putting in new spark plugs and switching around my tuner.

 

[canyon1]

Does the engine have 4 valves per cylinder? I'm guessing that is why it has the "Y" rocker arm. To find TDC on the compession stroke, I put finger over spark plug hole while helper rotates rear wheel slowly in gear. When it starts compression stroke I use a piece of bent coathanger to feel piston as it reaches top of stroke. Easy adjustment on the pushrods for my Harley but Stryker has overhead cam so it's a different animal. Been some time since I did this on my DOHC '72 Honda 450. ;D

 

[straightjacket]

Most of the modern Jap bikes have an access hole for the crankbolt, and an access for the TDC and firing mark. Just use a breaker bar so you can control it, slowly turn untill you see the intakes stroke, then just look for your mark.