Valve Clearance and Cable Lubing

One of the reasons I opted for a SV curvey was that I reconned it looked pretty easy to service and repair, and so far so good. What I will not attempt is checking the valve clearance but am still very reluctant to pay for it. When I last paid for my Hornet to be checked there was no adjustment required, so a couple of £££ for nothing. Are there any tell tell signs that the vales need adjusting? What are others experiences with this? What could happen if I simply don't bovver? Dirty, Curvey Sk1 about 24,000.

I also have cable lubing on my to do list. Looks pretty easy, with elastic bands and plastic bags, any tips?

Cheers
Slip

Originally Posted by slippery

One of the reasons I opted for a SV curvey was that I reconned it looked pretty easy to service and repair, and so far so good. What I will not attempt is checking the valve clearance but am still very reluctant to pay for it. When I last paid for my Hornet to be checked there was no adjustment required, so a couple of £££ for nothing. Are there any tell tell signs that the vales need adjusting? What are others experiences with this? What could happen if I simply don't bovver? Dirty, Curvey Sk1 about 24,000.

I also have cable lubing on my to do list. Looks pretty easy, with elastic bands and plastic bags, any tips?

Cheers
Slip

Can't help you with the first question as I don't have that much experience with valve clearance problems. I very much like to set my Ford Fiesta clearance every six months which are very easily done with spanners and a feel gauge but I've to do the SV check yet!

I use a syringe for cable lubing. I also find a syringe useful for changing the brake oil. I suck/drain what I can out of the reserviour first. I put the old oil into a jar with a punched hole in the lid and a drain tube going through it. This way the old oil acts as a valve which keeps air going back into the system when bleeding given that the end of the tube is inserted down into the old oil.

[Sid Squid]

Originally Posted by slippery

Are there any tell tell signs that the vales need adjusting?

Not really, if the clearances got really wide, you might hear a bit of clatter, but I doubt it. The real problem is if they close up, it doesn't make any different noise.

Originally Posted by slippery

What are others experiences with this? What could happen if I simply don't bovver?

They don't go out much, but the ones that do are often the exhausts getting tight, there is a risk of burning a valve, mucho expensive.

You may not like the idea of shimming the valves yourself, but checking the clearances is not difficult, if you find they're off take it to someone else to adjust.

Mine has done ~21000 now. I wondered about checking at 15/16K, but as, a) it wasn't that noisy (but I am deaf) and b) I read posts from people here who have checked and found nothing wrong, I thought I'd ignore it. That's not a recomendation tho'

But having read Sid Squid's post above, I wonder if I shouldn't bite the bullet and check... Trouble is, everything I set out to do takes soooo long and invariably impinges onto riding time. I changed chain & sprockets yesterday, which set me back best part of £150 and 5 hours by the time I'd bought all the tools I was missing as well.

[Sid Squid]

I can understand exactly what you mean, the SV is well known for not requiring much adjustment, but as an unscientific example of how random it can be I've adjusted nothing at all on many 15,000 mile bikes but just recently did one, (that I've known from new, so can be certain of the mileage), at the same 15,000 that needed three shims changing. Another SV, just on 95-100,000 miles now, has had only three valves adjusted in all that time - five have never moved at all, but the 45,000 check on another late last year revealed four needing attention.

Go check.

[timwilky]

Checking the clearance is extreamly simple. It is only a pain if the check reveals you need to do some shimming. I checked mine a few weeks ago during its first major service and well within tolerance.

Cheers guys, guess I better get the spanners out and stop being suck a lazy b'tard.

[Mark_h]

Haynes makes this look far too simple. Is this one of those jobs where you need a special tool or a three elbowed arm to get the last cover off or is it straight forward.

Also do you need to drain the oil out before starting the job and is it one of those tasks that will cover my nice new driveway in oil ?

Thanks in advance,
Mark

[rictus01]

Originally Posted by Mark_h

Haynes makes this look far too simple. Is this one of those jobs where you need a special tool or a three elbowed arm to get the last cover off or is it straight forward.

Also do you need to drain the oil out before starting the job and is it one of those tasks that will cover my nice new driveway in oil ?

Thanks in advance,
Mark

With a little care it's a straight forward job, no need to drain anything, to make life easier, raise the tank (side panels off, seat off, two bolts at front of tank,) then undo the two bolts on the hinge at the back of the tank and remove (dis connect the hoses/put it somewhere safe, don't trip over it).

air box off, then bit of rag over the side frame rail and dis connect throttle bodies (or carbs) from cylinder head and rest over the rag on it's cable (good tip is to cable tie in place) still attached to its cables.

Now you have access to the rocker covers, you shouldn't drop any oil (but it doesn't hurt to put some news paper down).

Cheers Mark.

[Skip]

Just had mine checked at 11,000 miles and they were all spot on the middle of the recommended tolerance...

(Thankfully the labour is free!)