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I'm back in collegeville and decided to finally take a look-see at the valves on my Radian. I know they have not been checked for the past 10,000 miles and they are supposed to be checked annually or every 8,000 miles, so in I went.

Where we last left our heroes (Katana in the front, Radian in the background):



Our subject:


Gather your tools and manual:


Next, spend ten minutes panicking because you lost your expensive feeler gauge. After that, start tearing it apart:



Following the manual's instructions, you should end up with recorded values for current valve clearances:



Then sucker a buddy in to try to pull the shims out while you press down on the bucket. After mangling a set of tweezers, give up and order the special tool. Of course, this will take the better part of a week to get, so just button it back up knowing exactly what the clearances are.

As expected, I had a loose exhaust valves (0.0095" actual, 0.006" to 0.008" spec) and a loose intake valve. Unexpectedly, I had two intake valves that were tighter than spec (0.0025" and 0.0032" for 0.004" to 0.006" spec).

Knowing is half the battle, and I probably will not take the Rad out on non-commuting rides until I get those valves whipped into shape. I imagine the total time to pull and install shims to be two hours, since I have to spend probably 45 minutes cleaning off my valve cover gasket and reapplying some Yamabond (or whatever OEM stuff I have). Dang Radians with their notorious leaking valve cover gaskets.

should be fairly easy to pull the cams out to make it easier to change out the valve shims. this is what I did when I had my '83 Suzuki GS650. Rather than spend the time and money on getting the special bucket depressor tool, I just popped the cam caps off, pulled out the camshafts (making sure I didn't drop the cam chain down into the engine) and swapped out the shims that needed to be shuffled around or replaced. Follow the directions to button up the cams in the right position again, and away you go.

I think it took me a 1/2 hour to check my valve clearances and swap out the shims doing it this way.

WhyteGryphon wrote:should be fairly easy to pull the cams out to make it easier to change out the valve shims. this is what I did when I had my '83 Suzuki GS650. Rather than spend the time and money on getting the special bucket depressor tool, I just popped the cam caps off, pulled out the camshafts (making sure I didn't drop the cam chain down into the engine) and swapped out the shims that needed to be shuffled around or replaced. Follow the directions to button up the cams in the right position again, and away you go.

I think it took me a 1/2 hour to check my valve clearances and swap out the shims doing it this way.

That does sound like a quicker and cheaper way to do it. I wasn't too enthuased about pulling my cams, though, and had no idea how tought it would be to degree them in correctly. I already had a list of stuff I needed for my bikes, so this just gave me extra incentive to go ahead and place my order.

Skier wrote: I wasn't too enthuased about pulling my cams, though, and had no idea how tought it would be to degree them in correctly. I already had a list of stuff I needed for my bikes, so this just gave me extra incentive to go ahead and place my order.

Pulling the cams and getting them back in in the correct orientation is actually a very easy task. The manual that you have will have a complete description of how to take them out and put them back in, along with what marks you use to get them lined up correctly.

Always a good idea to read through that particular section a couple times first though to make sure that you have the procedure straight before you ever set wrench to bolt though.

OK so do you have to take the head off to check and adjust valve clearances?

kar_the_terrible wrote:OK so do you have to take the head off to check and adjust valve clearances?

you don't have to remove the cylinder heads, just the cam cover. A very easy process that doesn't take much time at all.

with my old suzuki, I actually was able to disassemble the top end of the engine (right down to the cylinder base gasket) in less than 20 minutes - while the engine and exhaust were still hot. (don't ask me why I had to do this; all I will say is that it involved new aftermarket gaskets and no instructions on what o-rings went where, thanks to them being different from the OEM gaskets)