Valve Clearences

[Tom_B1H]

How important is it to get the clearences done?
Service manual says 16,000 miles, im currently on 23,000. I do not have the tools or facilities to attempt this myself and main dealers want £500 for a major service inc clearences
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Previous: '08 Suzuki DRZ400SM > '04 Kawasaki ZX-6R B1H
Current: '07 Kawasaki ZX-6R P7F

[Paddy Blake]

You could just get them to do the valve clearance and do the rest yourself.

[hmmmnz]

definitly worth doing, especially your first service,
you probably get away with not doing it again
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[Maruchino]

If left unattended the valves will eventually burn out. The bill for this is far more than £500.

Consider yourself lucky, I have to do my ZX6R J1 every 7.5k miles! I do them myself and it costs about £5 for a new pulsing cover gasket. Swap the shims with a garage and do an oil change at the same time. If you're mechanically minded and don't mind having a go you can do this in a day/two days and save yourself a bucket load of cash each time.

[Wafer_Thin_Ham]

Depends on how comfortable you are.

Usually you'll get other issues to symbolise that your clearences are closing up, but not always.

There are some bikes that seem to need to have a clearences adjusted a lot, and other bikes that never need them doing. It just depends.

May as well get them checked out for piece of mind. Have you tried looking on mcnnninjas to see how easy it would actually be?
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[Phoenix]

Does depend on bike I think, I had my GSXR750 ones done at 16,000 miles or so and 3 were out of tolerance, fixed by just swapping the shims around until they were all in check. I've had 2 Fireblades though that've passed through 2 valve clearance intervals and they've never been out of tolerance, current Blade is on 29,000 miles and they've never needed adjusting though I do get them checked just to be on the safe side.

No reason to get a main dealer to do it really, use a good independant garage, I have a couple of places that will check the valves and balance the carbs for £80 roughly, usually includes a couple of other jobs like fitting a new C&S kit though.

[Tom_B1H]

Been quoted £180 + shims by an independant garage
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Previous: '08 Suzuki DRZ400SM > '04 Kawasaki ZX-6R B1H
Current: '07 Kawasaki ZX-6R P7F

[DrDonnyBrago]

Tom,

Checking the clearances is piss easy, the tools required are a socket set and a set of feeler gauges (both can be had for £20 in total).

It only becomes tricky if you need to adjust any, at 23k though the chances are that you wont need to.

To check = basically, take off the tank, airbox (possibly throttle bodies), a small cover on the stator side, take out the spark plugs and pop off the valve cover - turn the engine over by hand a few times following the manual whilst shoving a feeler gauge in the gap between the valve bucket and your camshafts...

If you are capable of changing your oil and removing your tank then you can check your valve clearances. It's also a great learning experience, very little can go wrong unless a few are out of adjustment. In this case your bike is already dismantled and a mobile mechanic would be the cheapest solution if you arent confident enough to remove the camshafts and shims etc.


Failing that, I'm sure there will be a friendly BCFer nearby should you need a hand .


EDIT: Ah and shims are surprisingly expensive, what is essentially a round piece of metal costs about £4 each, maybe double that from a dealer. Most 600s will have 16 of them feckers!!!

[Walloper]

Don't be misled by the 'done that and I have a wardrobe of T-shirts for it' brigade on here.

Quite a lot can go wrong if you do not know what you are doing.

Drop a wee 'something' in the cam box and you may say goodbye to your engine if you run it up with a 'foreign body' inside.

Be certain you are up to it. And take your time be methodical.
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[Ditto]

Am I right in thinking valve adjusting is only really tricky when the bike uses shims?

Ive got to do mine this week and they are on a '98 model, with just an adjuster nut and pliers jobby which ive heard is quite easy.

All this talk of dropping stuff and knackering the engine is putting me right off
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CG 125 > Bandit 600 > CBR 600 FY > Street Triple R

[Phoenix]

Pliers? If you have screw adjust valves then you'd be wanting a spanner and screwdriver. They are easier than shimmed valves as they don't require removal of the camshaft, camchain tensioner and camchain, obviously you also have to make sure you get the timing right when you replace it all on a shimmed engine. There's potentially quite a lot to go wrong with valve adjusting if you actually have to swap shims, to compare it to doing an oil change is laughable, checking yes, adjusting no.

[hmmmnz]

[DrDonnyBrago]

[Walloper]