Roughly how much to do valve clearances?
Discussion
I'm in two minds to hand over the bike to the local Honda dealer or back street bike garage, or dust off the Haynes manual and try it myself.
This depends on what will be roughly be charged. The bike itself is a 2000 cbr600f so worth about the same as a Big Mac therefore I don't care about official stamps.
This depends on what will be roughly be charged. The bike itself is a 2000 cbr600f so worth about the same as a Big Mac therefore I don't care about official stamps.
tom_e said:
around £200 seems to be the going rate around here for doing it on my SV, the bikes got to be ice cold so you'll ideally need to leave it with them overnight then it's a fair bit of labour to strip everything down to get to the valves.
That's cheap for a vtwin as there's twice the crap to take off, I reckon £250 on a 4 cylinder bike, I personally wouldn't bother, I have checked them on lots of bikes and only one had needed shims changing and they were barely out of spec, and had done 58k miles, on an old CBR6 just keep riding it unless you are having issues.I've tried twice to adjust the shims on my ZZR600.
I've also fitted 2 replacement engines, shortly afterwards. Funnily, replacement engines are cheaper than a valve clearance check.
To be fair to me, clearance is very tight on the Kwak exhaust valves.
The most recent engine, I took it to a garage in the back of the car before fitting, and the check only cost £50 or so.
My next plan is to (assumming I will get the clearances done again) -
- ride the bike to the garage, and park it up
- go back in my car, and remove the relevant fairing, tank, airbox, cables, carbs, coils, tubes, and engine lid
- wheel bike into garage for a much cheaper check
- re-assamble in the car park
This is on the basis a) I'm too skint to pay people to do stuff I can probably do myself and b) my time is not more expensive than the rate I'm being charged.
Obviously, other people's circumstances will be different.
Ian
I've also fitted 2 replacement engines, shortly afterwards. Funnily, replacement engines are cheaper than a valve clearance check.
To be fair to me, clearance is very tight on the Kwak exhaust valves.
The most recent engine, I took it to a garage in the back of the car before fitting, and the check only cost £50 or so.
My next plan is to (assumming I will get the clearances done again) -
- ride the bike to the garage, and park it up
- go back in my car, and remove the relevant fairing, tank, airbox, cables, carbs, coils, tubes, and engine lid
- wheel bike into garage for a much cheaper check
- re-assamble in the car park
This is on the basis a) I'm too skint to pay people to do stuff I can probably do myself and b) my time is not more expensive than the rate I'm being charged.
Obviously, other people's circumstances will be different.
Ian
Jazoli said:
That's cheap for a vtwin as there's twice the crap to take off, I reckon £250 on a 4 cylinder bike, I personally wouldn't bother, I have checked them on lots of bikes and only one had needed shims changing and they were barely out of spec, and had done 58k miles, on an old CBR6 just keep riding it unless you are having issues.
It has become very tappety when cold. Only when it it properly hot does it quieten down. They are most likely to need reshimming (if at all) on the first check so if you know they have been checked properly before I'd be inclined to leave it unless you have other symptoms.
Trouble is unless you have a good garage it's pretty easy for a dodgy one to say they need doing £400 please, when they are ok or they charge you for a check and really only lift the tank and dust the rocker cover.
Trouble is unless you have a good garage it's pretty easy for a dodgy one to say they need doing £400 please, when they are ok or they charge you for a check and really only lift the tank and dust the rocker cover.
Jazoli said:
That's cheap for a vtwin as there's twice the crap to take off, I reckon £250 on a 4 cylinder bike, I personally wouldn't bother, I have checked them on lots of bikes and only one had needed shims changing and they were barely out of spec, and had done 58k miles, on an old CBR6 just keep riding it unless you are having issues.
I'll echo this. My local Honda dealer said every bike they've ever checked at the 32k interval has never needed anything. Needless to say I'm at 37k and haven't had mine done. Runs beautifully. I once worked at a place that used "valve adjusting fluid" to do the job.
Spray some brake-cleaner on a rag, wipe round the outside of the cam-cover so it actually looks like its been off, charge customer two hours labour.
The owner claimed he had never adjusted valves on anything made after 1995.
I didn't work there long...
Spray some brake-cleaner on a rag, wipe round the outside of the cam-cover so it actually looks like its been off, charge customer two hours labour.
The owner claimed he had never adjusted valves on anything made after 1995.
I didn't work there long...
BuzzBravado said:
It has become very tappety when cold. Only when it it properly hot does it quieten down.
You sure it's not an exhaust leak, a small gap can blow making a similar noise and as the pipe heats up the gap closes, noise gone...I'm another in the 'leave it alone' camp, the only bike I ever fannied about with was a 550 Katana and after finding just one clearance that was a dwarf's todger out, stripping the top end and changing the shim, it made no bloody difference whatsoever.
My Pan Euro's on 44.5K at the moment and the clearances haven't been checked while I've had it (five years and 23000 miles), maybe when it gets to 50K and if I'm bored I may check them.
BuzzBravado said:
Jazoli said:
That's cheap for a vtwin as there's twice the crap to take off, I reckon £250 on a 4 cylinder bike, I personally wouldn't bother, I have checked them on lots of bikes and only one had needed shims changing and they were barely out of spec, and had done 58k miles, on an old CBR6 just keep riding it unless you are having issues.
It has become very tappety when cold. Only when it it properly hot does it quieten down. 
Checking is the easy bit so why not just do it yourself, that way you know if they are within tolerance or not?
And to all those who say they never need adjusting it really does vary bike to bike, for example my ZX6R needed 11 shims at 14K, and at around a similar mileage my GS500 had no clearance on the exhaust valves to the extend it was losing compression. £25 in shims and a days work to fix it myself
And to all those who say they never need adjusting it really does vary bike to bike, for example my ZX6R needed 11 shims at 14K, and at around a similar mileage my GS500 had no clearance on the exhaust valves to the extend it was losing compression. £25 in shims and a days work to fix it myself
They are pretty tappity as standard mate. Watch out for the CCT as a potential cause as it is probably more likely than valves.
I did mine a year or so ago. To be honest I would agree with Jazoli, it's a lot of effort but then again I'd not done it before. The Honda service manual you have is most certainly the same as mine where the timing marks aren't necessarily the same as described which confused me slightly.
If you like you can borrow my manual tensioner if you are near Dalkeith? You can rule out the CCT with minimal effort before you start taking it apart.
You'll also need a very very very long pozi2 screwdriver if you remove the carbs. Again you can borrow this if you like.
I did mine a year or so ago. To be honest I would agree with Jazoli, it's a lot of effort but then again I'd not done it before. The Honda service manual you have is most certainly the same as mine where the timing marks aren't necessarily the same as described which confused me slightly.
If you like you can borrow my manual tensioner if you are near Dalkeith? You can rule out the CCT with minimal effort before you start taking it apart.
You'll also need a very very very long pozi2 screwdriver if you remove the carbs. Again you can borrow this if you like.
Prof Prolapse said:
They are pretty tappity as standard mate. Watch out for the CCT as a potential cause as it is probably more likely than valves.
I did mine a year or so ago. To be honest I would agree with Jazoli, it's a lot of effort but then again I'd not done it before. The Honda service manual you have is most certainly the same as mine where the timing marks aren't necessarily the same as described which confused me slightly.
If you like you can borrow my manual tensioner if you are near Dalkeith? You can rule out the CCT with minimal effort before you start taking it apart.
You'll also need a very very very long pozi2 screwdriver if you remove the carbs. Again you can borrow this if you like.
The CCT has been changed to a manual one. I'll leave it until i have time then look into it again. This bike is turning into Triggers broom. I did mine a year or so ago. To be honest I would agree with Jazoli, it's a lot of effort but then again I'd not done it before. The Honda service manual you have is most certainly the same as mine where the timing marks aren't necessarily the same as described which confused me slightly.
If you like you can borrow my manual tensioner if you are near Dalkeith? You can rule out the CCT with minimal effort before you start taking it apart.
You'll also need a very very very long pozi2 screwdriver if you remove the carbs. Again you can borrow this if you like.
Ah well if clearances aren't hard to check. But access to exhaust valves is bit restricted, I used angled feeler gauges in addition to normal ones to make it easier. I suspect you could do it without however.
I think 16 years old for a bike is getting on a bit. I spent a lot of time working on mine before I got fed up and bought a newer one.
I think 16 years old for a bike is getting on a bit. I spent a lot of time working on mine before I got fed up and bought a newer one.
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