Getting in over my head?

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swirlie · #1 Unread post by **swirlie** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:05 am

Hey folks, I need a few questions answered. I have an 06 Suzuki Katana 750, got 4k miles, owned it for about 8 months now, first bike I've owned. I have never done any sort of mechanical work before (other than changing oil on cars) and I can't afford to continue to pay the shop rates for work on my bike (paying $150 for an oil change...).

I ordered a Haynes manual and am planning on changing my oil, and that seems to be easy enough. My problem is that everyone says I need to adjust the valves. I haven't gotten the Haynes manual in the mail yet, but I'm wanting to know how difficult it is to adjust valves on this bike. I talked to a guy who owns a slightly older Katana, and he said he does his and it's pretty easy since Kats use screw adjusters and not bucket/shim types, but once again, I've never done any sort of mechanical work before. I had to adjust my chain a few week ago and that went very smooth, got it done with no problems and have ridden quite a bit since then so I'm pretty sure I did it right otherwise I think I would have noticed any problems since then.

Am I getting in over my head on this, or what? Does anyone have any pointers or advice you think I should hear before I attempt to tackle these vavles? Am I going to end up pulling the engine out of the bike to get to the valves to do the adjustment? Also, what sorts of tools will I need so that I can do this? Thanks for any help

CNF2002 · #2 Unread post by **CNF2002** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:34 am

Who is 'everyone' saying you need to adjust your valves? You have an owners manual with a maintenance list on there (yes?) otherwise get a maintenance list from a dealer or a full service manual that has one in it. You can probably even find a list of maintenance items for your bike online. If you've changed your oil in your car, you can do it on your bike. You may have to remove some plastic, but its all nuts and bolts. $150 for an oilchange is wild.

Anyway, do what your manual says. If it says you need a valve adjustment, you should have it done. Otherwise I'd skip it until needed.

swirlie · #3 Unread post by **swirlie** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 6:50 am

I was told by the dealership personnel that on the first or second maintenance, they would have to adjust the valves, don't remember everything they said but it had something to do with the break-in. If I remember correctly, they would have to ensure that the valves were seated properly and not out of adjustment, and if they were out, they would have to adjust them. I was also told by another shop that it was standard maintenance to check/adjust the valves within a few thousand miles of buying a new bike. I was also told by an appearal/accessory shop owner who I trust pretty well that I would need it.

When I took the bike in for the first maintenance, the bill was over $180. On the invoice, it said they changed the oil and spent some time looking things over to ensure proper break-in, but the only actual service done was changing the oil and filter. I'm sure that them 'looking around' to make sure it was breaking in properly was not $100 of labor time, and I'm sure a dealership tends to run pretty high on the labor costs, but you're right, $150 for an oil change is stupid high, that's why I want to do it myself. When I talked to them about the current maintenace, they said an oil change and vavle adjust was needed, and quoted a $300+ price tag for it.

CNF2002 · #4 Unread post by **CNF2002** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 7:04 am

The first maintenance was a little more than just changing oil. It would, or should, have included rechecking all the assembled components that are done at the dealer when the vehicle arrives in a crate. Making sure none of the bolts came loose, etc. Thats a good service to have and it was worth your $180.

$100 at a bike dealer gets you about 1 hour of labor, and they always round up. You were certainly not 'ripped off' in any way.

Again, check your manual, the manufacturers manual. Do the service that they recommend, not what the dealer or indy shops recommend, nor what the guy who sells jackets says. If I had a dollar for every service mechanics recommended to my friends and family that they didn't need I wouldn't be here, because I would be driving a brand new Mercedes S class and wouldn't give a lick about saving on gas.

Sev · #5 Unread post by **Sev** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 9:46 am

Did you take it in for the first service? If they're supposed to be checked at all in the first 16k miles or so, it should be the first service. Please tell me that's not the original oil kicking around in there

Changing the oil is easy even without the manual, manuals just there to tell you torque specs and order of operations, you can get it done easy, and it you're lucky you won't even need to remove any body work (but I wouldn't count on it).

Doing the valves might be a pain depending on where they're located. I need to pull the tank to get at mine *wince*.

Read through the chapter twice, make sure you know what every thing is, then start the job. Nothing is worse then getting 1/2 into what you're doing then realising that you missed a step and need to put it back together (or pull it back apart) to fix it.

ill'n · #6 Unread post by **ill'n** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 4:16 pm

Hey, a tricycle squid, just like me!

My Yamaha Virago 250 owner's manual said the bike needed valve clearance adjustment at 600 miles. I bought the bike used, and it had 750 miles on it, but I'm willing to bet the bike that the previous owner didn't do the 600 mile scheduled maintenance; so I did it myself.

Like Sevulturus said, mine required removing the gas tank. The whole procedure was time consuming, and sometimes required acrobatic finger contortions. But each step was pretty simple by itself.

The tools I used were my wrench set, pliars, screw drivers, a fishing weight scale (I'll explain later), and a feeler gauge ($15).

The steps that gave me the most trouble were:
-- Removing fuel, vaccuum and air hoses to separate the fuel tank. They were connected pretty tight (that's good, I guess), and they sometimes required squeezing fingers into tight places.
-- Removing the tappet covers (covers over the valve itself), because the tappet cover required a larger socket size than was in my set or was provided in the bike toolkit (15/16" I think it was).
-- Inserting the feeler gauge. Again, it required strange finger contortions to get it in properly.
-- Retightening everything to the specified torque. Because of space restrictions, I couldn't fit my torque wrench in. I had to use normal wrenches combined with a fishing weight scale that used a hook (purchased from Target for $20) along with some pencil and paper calculations to get the bolts tightened at the correct torque.

By the way, my bike is air-cooled with a simple single carburetor system. If you have a liquid cooled engine with a fuel-injection system, your engine components might be even more cramped than mine.

Good luck.

sharpmagna · Mon Nov 13, 2006 4:23 pm

The valve adjustment part normally isn't very hard, it's getting to the heads to adjust them. On mine, you have to remove the seats, tank, the neck covers, ignition coils, airbox, and move the radiator forward. Once you do that, removing the valve heads to access the valves is a piece of cake

Since the bike is new to me, I let the local shop do it. They charged me 3 hours to a tune of $190 for the valve adjustments. Luckily it only has to be done at 8k mile intervals and the next one I'll do myself and pocket the cash.

For the regular air filter/oil & filter/spark plugs, you should learn how to do it and save yourself some cash. That saved cash goes towards more stuff for you and your bike

swirlie · #8 Unread post by **swirlie** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 8:24 am

Got my Haynes manual in the mail last night. Again, confirmed that at the 4k mile mark it needs valve attention. The manual said they should be checked with a feeler gauge to make sure they haven't gotten out of calibration during the break-in. And no, Sevulturus, it's not the original oil in there, I did get the first service done promplty at 600 miles... okay, it was actually 618 miles when I dropped it off.

It, it's an air cooled carbureted engine (so says both manuals). Thanks for the tip about the scale, that's a handy thing to know.

From what I can remember of the manual (I'm at work, manual's at home) it said I will need to loosen the tank but not necessarily remove the various lines, they recommend breaking the tank loose from the mounts to get to the places I need to (it's possible with the tank still bolted on, but alot easier if it's loosened up it said). It said remove the farings and airbox, don't know about the rest of the parts sharpmagna talked about. Probably going to be something similiar. It did say that for this maintenance, the valves probably only need to be checked and most likely no adjustment will be needed. However, they did say that sometimes they will need to be adjusted and it explains in detail how to do it all with lots of pictures.

As for the oil/filter change, I read through that section and I can do it all with only removing a small (4" or so) access panel from the right side faring to get to the oil cap to add the new oil. The small lower faring (8 bolts) drops off to reveal the oil pan and drain plug and the filter is accessible by hand from there.

The air filter is accessible by pulling the seat off, it pulls right out from being tucked under the fuel tank, and I'll get a can of air to blow it out (manual said it only needed to be cleaned, not replaced on this maintenance).

Don't remember it saying anything about the spark plugs, but I'm not going to get a chance to do all this stuff till Saturday, so I've got a couple days to recheck the manuals (both Haynes and the factory owner's manual) to buy all the stuff I need.

Don't worry Sevulturus, I'll be doing all this with the manual laid open next to me in the driveway! Thanks for all the advice guys, and wish me luck come saturday morning!