valve clearance chceking. How important

[yuergenb]

I maintain our two 95 St 1100's and like to think I do a good job. I bought mine at 28,000 miles in 09. The valves had been checked and everything was perfect. My wifes has had hers done by the previous owner who really maintained her bike well. The readings were great then also. My bike now has 80,000 miles and my wifes has 142,000 miles. I changed her timing belt last winter because of age, and it was like brand new. My question is, how often should you really check and adjust the valve clearances? What is the consequence for not doing it? I dont think I can do that , and am happy to pay a mechanic but assume its a hassle to take off all the plastic to get at them. Any thoughts from guys who have done it already? Thanks

 

[dduelin]

Regular valve checks are necessary and easy to do.

This question is subjective and some will completely disagree with me. They never check them and are comfortable with the slight risk of burned valves.

 

[SMSW]

Valves in ST's tend to be fairly stable. That said, checking the clearance is important. As valves and seats wear, the clearance decreases and can eventually lead to a burned valve or valves and/or valve seats. Repairing this damage requires pulling the cylinder head(s) and gets expensive. Checking them is fairly easy and is well within the capability of nearly everyone. Adjusting them - removing the cam and changing the shims is a bit more involved. Honda specifies checking them at 16,000 mi intervals.

Enough guys here have adjusted (changed the shims) on one or more valves while owning their bike to prove the point that while these engines are very stable, they are not maintenance free. You will have to balance the risk of damage against the relative ease of doing the checks. As said, some guys never check and never have problems.

I left NY to go to school in Ohio. The people in my home town, for the most part, maintained their houses well. When I got to Cleveland, I discovered that many tended to 'use up their homes like a tube of toothpaste' - maintenance was deferred or outright ignored. YMMV.

BTW, I'm in the maintain-by-the-book camp.

 

[STPaulK]

I check brand new bikes on the first check, just to establish the baseline. Then I check again after 16k miles. If there is no movement, I stretch the next to 32k. I only had to adjust one borderline exhaust on my ST1100 and I believe it was that way from the factory. My 1300 clearances have not budged one bit in 64k miles.

I guess my view is its absolutely a must to check them once in your ownership so you know where you are at. The followup is your decision but I am moving beyond 16k on my 1300 to 32k.

 

[Bush]

Hi Yuergen,

Forest here. Glad to hear Joanne has put a few miles on my old trusty STeed.. My records of that bike (hope you got the copy from Jack Hackett) shows that I last checked them at 132,600 km. and it has about 230,000 km on now, so I would definitely go in and give them a look, unless Jack may have had it done in the short time that he owned the bike. He bought it at 175,000 km.

Just checking the valves is quite easy and I believe you have a Service Manual that would guide you and there's loads of help here too. Doing just the inspection yourself will save you a lot of $$$ and then, if any adjustments are needed, you know that taking it to the shop won't be a waste of money, if you choose not to do it yourself. Bear in mind that the last time I found any adjustments were needed was at 50,000 km., so those valves were very stable for a long while before I sold the bike and if Jack hadn't had them looked at, then all has been good for about 180,000 km!

If you do have to take it to a shop, at least strip off all the plastic, except the rear sub frame portion, of course. That will save you about two hours labour charge right there.

Do you and Joanne still have a trip west in mind?

 

[Erdoc48]

I will say using the manual, I was able to take off the engine maintenance covers (and had the lower gray fairing off for a clutch bleed job as well as an oil change), and was able to work in the small space that the engine maintenance covers well, cover (so there’s not major disassembly of the bodywork, but on the red 2000, I did have to remove the false tank cover and just move the left gray panel just a hair to get the valve cover back on the left side- I didn’t have to do this for the gray 94 ST). I also had the crank bolt cover off so I could rotate the engine. In truth, I didn’t remove the plugs, just carefully rotated the engine with a 17 mm socket and ratchet, and all worked out well. All of my valves on both bikes were in the middle of spec, so it does give you a bit of peace of mind that you checked. I used a little Permatex gasket maker on the valve cover so that the OEM gasket stays in place (and you should let it dry a few hours so it doesn’t more easily come off when you’re putting it back over the valves.

Spec values if you want them are when done cold, like bike not used overnight:
Intake: 0.005-0.007 in. or 0.13-0.19 mm
Exhaust: 0.009-0.011 in. or 0.22-0.28 mm (funny, the edition of my manual says 0.009- 0.11 in. which is clearly wrong and a misprint!)

My 2000 has ~ 35K miles and the 94 around 38K, so these are relatively low mileage bikes- I probably won’t do it again til they have ~55-60K miles on them.

In short, I‘m really no engine expert, and I found this quite easy to do. I wouldn’t pay a shop to do it, even if I had to swap out a shim. There’s plenty of info here and videos (I recall a specific YouTube video where the owner shows how to swap the shims and how to remove the cams) as well on how to do it all.

 

[yuergenb]

Thanks for the help and tips, everyone. I will definitely check them both again. I have had my bike completely apart and back so I guess I might as well try to inspect the clearances myself and go from there.

 

[yuergenb]

Hi Forest. We arent able to get out west yet, but we certainly are still wanting to. We are changing our construction business to building tiny homes this spring, fulltime. I havent had a minute spare for six months as the setup takes every minute I have. We definitely will get out there one day though. I hope you are well. Jo is still loving her ST. We have a shimmy in the front end that develop half way through last season. I have been going through the elimination process to find out what it is. Going to try dyna-beads next. If that doesnt do it, I'll swap our front tires and see if that helps. After that I was thinking about roller bearings in the tree. The bike runs great though. We did a 10 day trip to the east coast last summer and loved it all. I have added oxford grips and a flashing led tail light where the reflector was on the fender. Other than that, its still stock. I was a little nervous to change the timing belt in Jo's bike, but did it last winter and she rode 16,000 kms this year and all is well. The old belt looked like brand new. No wear or cracks. I couldnt see in the records where it had been changed before so thought it was time. Hope you're surviving the winter in BC. Spring is coming.

 

[red one]

Mine was checked at the first service at 16K miles. Now have 73K and have not been checked. Bike rides good and makes the normal noise so I don't bother. I also have a 2005 corolla that has over 200K that has never had a valve inspection. It runs like new so I ain't going to bother with that either.

 

[Bush]

The old belt looked like brand new. No wear or cracks. I couldnt see in the records where it had been changed before so thought it was time.

Hi Yuergen. Nice pic! If you can do a timing belt, you certainly can handle a valve inspection. The belt you changed out was installed on June 22, 2003. I had done it earlier than required, at 95,800 km., because I was in there changing a leaky water pump at the time. Your timing on changing it again was good. It seems they almost always come out looking brand new!

I would bet it is finally time to change out those ball bearings in the tree. My ministrations of lubing and re-torquing them a couple of times kept them good for the 175,000 km I put on them, but they can't last forever.

Glad to hear my old STeed is still giving smiles and holding up well and good luck in the tiny house business! Still riding my '96 here and look forward to the day, if I'm still riding then, that three Pure Pearl Red ST's get together for a ride.

Spring can't be far off for us, as the crocus and snowdrops are poking their heads out in the garden already. Best to you and Joanne.

 

[John OoSTerhuis]

I’m in the “at least check the clearances for peace of mind” camp. Easy to do and there’s little risk of doing any damage. FWIW

John

 

[CYYJ]

Enough guys here have adjusted (changed the shims) on one or more valves while owning their bike to prove the point that while these engines are very stable, they are not maintenance free.

That has been my experience - it seems that the valves "settle in" over time, so that the number of adjustments that need to be made diminishes over time.

My ST 1100 now has 200,000+ kilometers on it, and I have had the valve clearance checked on schedule since the bike was new. At first, several shims were getting changed each time. Recently, either no shims needed changing, or only one shim needed changing, and then only to the very next size.

I do encourage you to perform the checks. It's not that difficult to do. I suspect that in addition to avoiding the risk of damage to a valve because of an out-of-tolerance condition, the engine itself probably performs better when all the valve clearances are within spec.

Michael