16,000 Valve Clearance Check?

[Huambo81a]

All of the stars have alligned to give me a terrible month iin bike expense, so much expense that i`m gonna have to get a loan to cover the cost.

New tyres £191
New chain and Sprockets £140
Valve Clearance Check £400 minimum

Does it cost this much for other people to run their 600cc Sportsbikes? Cos this expense is more than i can afford!!

Is a Valve clearance service really this expensive? They seem to check alot of things, but when someone says £400 minimum, it means £500.

A Lancer Evo would cost less to run!
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Present: 2017 KTM Super Adventure S
Past: 97 Bandit 600 / 05 Bandit 1200 / 03 ZX6-R / 2006 Tuono R / 2001 VFR 800 / 2010 Street Triple R / 2013 Speed Triple S / 2017 S1000XR

[JGY6000]

sounds like this is main dealer from the costs??

£400 sounds far to much, even if they charged £50 per hour that works out at 8 Hours!!! no way does it take that long!

[SimonB]

Thats far too much to pay for a valve clearence check I sent my bike to a local garage and it cost me about £50.

For all I know what I paid could be too much!
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Bikes: Honda CBR250RR [sold], Yamaha FZR600 [sold], Honda CBR600RR6

[MarkJ]

Does it sound like the valve clearances need checking? If not I wouldn't bother

[.....]

With the aid of a manual how about giving it a go yourself?

It's probably more than I would attempt but at £400 I'm sure I could learn pretty quick

[Ariel Badger]

Have you seen the new Harry Enfield show?
They do a bit with this rich woman being taken to the cleaners in various shops.
Could be a bike dealers soon.
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Bikers make great organ donors, get 115 on your licence today.

[Huambo81a]

Probably should have made it more clear, its a major service at 16000 on a zx636, think its more than just valve clearance check, think they said it was 5 hours labour.

Either way, i have tried to get another quote from a different independant bike mechanic, and he says £300 minimum, and more if he has to replace the shims, although i have no idea what a 'shim; is when its at home.

Man, i think for my next bike i`m gonna get a big understressed engine, like a GSX1400.
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Present: 2017 KTM Super Adventure S
Past: 97 Bandit 600 / 05 Bandit 1200 / 03 ZX6-R / 2006 Tuono R / 2001 VFR 800 / 2010 Street Triple R / 2013 Speed Triple S / 2017 S1000XR

[0ddball]

It's the price you pay when you get someone to do it all for you.

Tyres you can't really do yourself so that's understandable. But a quality chain and sprocket kit can be bought for £70, and the clearance check isn't difficult, just time consuming.

If any shims need replacing it can get a bit more difficult depending on whether you need to remove the cams or not.

They should be charging you about £100 for the check (2 hours labour) then perhaps another £150-200 if they find a few need reshimming.
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ZXR750L

[Huambo81a]

I think i would like to know how to do it myself, but honestly i can`t fathom attempting this, my mechanical knowledge is not good, and to start off on valve clearances would baffle me, and quite possibly destroy the bike.

This is the person who took over an hour and a half to remove a front wheel.
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Present: 2017 KTM Super Adventure S
Past: 97 Bandit 600 / 05 Bandit 1200 / 03 ZX6-R / 2006 Tuono R / 2001 VFR 800 / 2010 Street Triple R / 2013 Speed Triple S / 2017 S1000XR

[Kickstart]

Hi

Problem is getting at the valves to check them. Probably tank off, airbox off, radiator off and coils off before you can even get at the clearances.

Shims themselves are small bits of metal which you replace with ones of a different thickness to get the correct clearance between the cams and the valves. Often to replace them you need to remove the cams (so then have the fun of getting the cam timing correct again, with stuff all visability with the engine in place).

Suspect the price you have been given is £400 if they check the clearances and find none that need doing. Shims themselves are probably £5 each, so in theory a possible £80 in shims (likely though that only a couple would need doing, and possible that some of those can be shuffled from other valves), and swapping them round will add a few hours labour.

[Spoon261]

I got fed up with labour costs and so learned to service my bike myself.
Its only a 2 year old Honda CG125, so is very basic and easy to service.

The last straw was the front disk brake (rear is drum), everyone quoted me 30mins to 60mins for labour to change the fluid, even all the independents. One shop was a bicycle shop that did a few mopeds! I went to over 5 independents and 2 main dealers and they all quoted the same amount of time and labour was between £35 and £50 excluding VAT per hour.

I managed to change the fluid myself very easily and I have read that with the right tool a novice that’s only done it a couple of times can do the whole job in less than 10 minutes.

I don’t trust any mechanic to actually do what I pay them for, I no if I change the oil that its been changed etc.

Best advice is if you do not no what to do, and have to pay a mechanic, stay with the bike and watch them work on it, you then no what they have really done and how much time it took, you could also learn from them so next time you may be able to do it yourself.

These rip off mechanics is one of the reasons I am on a single cylinder push rod engine since its very, very easy to service and nothing really to do, its only got 2 valves and they are screw and nut ones, no carbs to balance or overhead cam to mess around with. So other than valve clearance, I have to change the oil, spark plug and every 2 years the brake fluid. The air filter is looked at every now and again. But that’s it, unless you class oiling the chain and tightening it as servicing.

[athelstan]

Get one of these for a quid and do it yourself

https://tinyurl.com/2av4jq

[bish777]

all modern sports machines have whats called shim under bucket heads.

The valves are adjusted with small metal discs(shims) that sit on top of the valve stem. Over them is a "bucket", that is moved buy the camshaft, that in turn opens the valve.

This design means the head must be stripped, cams removed, the works. Hence the 400 quid pricetag.

Lower performance machines and alot of older sportsbikes (mid nineties and earlier) use rocker arms and bolts with locknuts that can be adjusted, only requiring the removal of the cam cover or some access panels.
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GSXR1100J

[Huambo81a]

Thanks for the info guys, looks like i`m just gonna bend over and take one for England.
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Present: 2017 KTM Super Adventure S
Past: 97 Bandit 600 / 05 Bandit 1200 / 03 ZX6-R / 2006 Tuono R / 2001 VFR 800 / 2010 Street Triple R / 2013 Speed Triple S / 2017 S1000XR

[McJamweasel]

[cestrian]

I reckon most dealers listen to the engine and if it sounds OK, then thats the valve clearances checked. With bike prices being so competitive, service costs must be high to make up for the shortfall.

Regards

[garth]

Give it a go yourself
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You ain't a has been if you never was

[woo]

One of the very reasons why i didnt get a kawasaki!

I was so hungry back in 2004 to get a nice yellow J2 600 but after doing some research on the bike and finding out that the shims on that model need checking every 8000 miles i thought fuck that!

Got an R6 intsead which dont need that checking till 24000miles same as the 00 R1 i now have. until then the only thing needed doing was carb balancing, spark plugs, oil & air filter changing, check wheel bearings and other minor things.

Good luck mate but so long as the mechanics are good at there job and dont rip you off you will enjoy the difference!

I paid £400 for a big engine out job on my old vfr nc30 and i really felt the difference!
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Elen sila lummen omentielvo!

[.....]

[woo]

Yes thats my point yours is the new fuel injected model whereas the J2/J1 models are carbed which require this when the main dealer told me this i told him have a nice day and left the shop.
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Elen sila lummen omentielvo!

[Itchy]

I was wondering why the CBR doesn't have a crank bolt like the NTV (the NTV has a crank bolt on both sides of the engine so you can turn the engine to TDC on each cylinder and adjust the valves),

but it it needs a check every 16K thats still only 2p per mile you do,

seems like bikes really do cost near the 24p per business mile you can claim back off the tax man , the NTV cost about 13p a mile , the CBR seems to be costing 27p a mile (sticky tyres , thirstier , needs more maintenance)
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[willi]

my bikes booked in to have the valve clearance's checked next week.along with the carbs synced.unfortunatly if you dont have the rite tools , gear and naulage then we have no choice.
if you decide to go ahead with the service.and they charge you for the shims.make it clear you want yours back. dont give the bastards nothing.
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wat goes around comes around.

[edd]

Do you not know anyone who is mechanically minded who could do the job for you for cheaper? You could very easily check the clearances yourself without much mechanical know how. Its very difficult to break anything, you are only taking off the valve cover so you dont have chance to screw up timing etc. If I were you I would check them yourself, and if you discover they need doing then pay the garage to re-shim it. I would do it myself, but you say you arent very mechanically minded and its an expensive bike to break. If the garage will be on you could strip it down ready, all the bolts out of the valve cover, tank off airbox off etc, so that they can spend less time actually doing the work, and you can pay less money. With the valve cover off it shouldn't take long at all to check the clearances (10 mins max) then they can do what needs doing (if some shims need changing) or just bang a couple of bolts back in the valve cover and give it back to you to reassemble. Getting down to the valve cover is what takes time in this job, and as much as it is time consuming it is work that any novice could do.
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Bluespark Automotive - Diesel Tuning for Performance and Economy

[snapperslappe...]

i was replacing the rocker box cover on the bandit, when my mate walked into the garage and produced a set of feeler gauges.....and then showed me how to check and adjust the valve clearences ( they are ajustable on the bandit, so no shims needed me thinks).

It was easy enough to do, and took about an hour fiddling with the adjusters to get the tolerance right......

but i made sure that my mate returned afterwards to check everything over before i put the new cover on and fired up the engine ( he used to build engines for a living, so knows his onions ). All was cool, and now the bike runs as sweet as a nut.

as edd said, it's an easy enough job to check the clearences, and will save you a fair bit of cash if they are sound...just make sure you have a bit of gaskett blue or some sort of seal bond to put on the cam covers on the rubber gasget, oh, and watch out for those dreaded spacer dowels ( if it's the same type as the bandit one!)

[Visitor Q]

My cbr 600 had full service history up until 36k whereupon i got it.

Havent got anything stamped since (fuck dealer prices).

I was thinking recently as its knocking about 41k now and its 11 ish years old, what else might it need doing.

I've done the cam chain tensioner, got it dynojetted.

But what about carb/valve balancing/clearances etc?

Note: Ultra poor
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