ST1100Y
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reaching the 100k miles on the '00 ST, and the (frequent) urban use demands his tribute to the heat of slow moving in dense traffic...
Already last summer/fall I noticed an oh so slight 'oily whiff' upon starting in the sub-level garage, vanished once on the move though...
To me its getting a little more prominent now, like catching up with you when stopping at a red light...
Nah, still absolutely no smoke upon whacking it, no "sooth" in the end-pipes, but even ze GF started to pick up the scent, mentioning "I think you're a little smelly!" on the bike2bike...
So while I had the carbs out (swapped them with an overhauled set to eliminate this as cause of bad odor) I peeked down the inlets and indeed:
the valve shafts appear shiny, "moist" if you will, no drops, nothing accumulating there on top of the valve heads... yet... but... rubber hardens over the years, heat-cycles, decades, K miles...
(since the '94 with higher miles still doesn't show such, declining material quality/change of vendors on late models might also play along...)
So I did an oil-change and an extended shakedown run on the weekend, which showed significant improvement (read: ze GF cannot detect anything anymore
) but I know its there, so how to attack that issue?
a) the "classic" way; heads off (= requires new head gaskets), clamp-on valve-spring compressor to lower the retainers to get the collets out, etc... ?
b) the crude way; stuff some rope down the plug hole, rotate cylinder to TDC to jam that against the valves, attach a rail to the head, and use a retainer compressing lever there ?
c) try the modern way with a plug-hole air-hose adapter to hold the valves up by air-pressure (AFAIK are motorcycle valve springs heavier then car types to cope with the RPMs... will 10Bar/140psi even be sufficient) ?
yeah, it'll take some efforts, but since such won't "heal" the miraculous way, it needs to be addressed IMO...
Anyone gone that road willing to share tips on tools and insight?
TIA
Already last summer/fall I noticed an oh so slight 'oily whiff' upon starting in the sub-level garage, vanished once on the move though...
To me its getting a little more prominent now, like catching up with you when stopping at a red light...
Nah, still absolutely no smoke upon whacking it, no "sooth" in the end-pipes, but even ze GF started to pick up the scent, mentioning "I think you're a little smelly!" on the bike2bike...
So while I had the carbs out (swapped them with an overhauled set to eliminate this as cause of bad odor) I peeked down the inlets and indeed:
the valve shafts appear shiny, "moist" if you will, no drops, nothing accumulating there on top of the valve heads... yet... but... rubber hardens over the years, heat-cycles, decades, K miles...
(since the '94 with higher miles still doesn't show such, declining material quality/change of vendors on late models might also play along...)
So I did an oil-change and an extended shakedown run on the weekend, which showed significant improvement (read: ze GF cannot detect anything anymore
) but I know its there, so how to attack that issue? a) the "classic" way; heads off (= requires new head gaskets), clamp-on valve-spring compressor to lower the retainers to get the collets out, etc... ?
b) the crude way; stuff some rope down the plug hole, rotate cylinder to TDC to jam that against the valves, attach a rail to the head, and use a retainer compressing lever there ?
c) try the modern way with a plug-hole air-hose adapter to hold the valves up by air-pressure (AFAIK are motorcycle valve springs heavier then car types to cope with the RPMs... will 10Bar/140psi even be sufficient) ?
yeah, it'll take some efforts, but since such won't "heal" the miraculous way, it needs to be addressed IMO...
Anyone gone that road willing to share tips on tools and insight?
TIA
Last edited:
?
), and € 100,- for mentioned valve spring compression kit...
at the office, hence a Loctite lipstick for scale...)