I made my first valve adjustment yesterday, and found it as easy as on my old CX500. Anyway there was one thing that was surprising, the valve clearances were too tight, especially on the exhaust side.
Should I assume that the valves were adjusted too tight by the dealer, or do the oilhead valve clearances have a tendency to get tighter? The machine has 46000 kms on it, and the valves were adjusted by the dealer at 20000 km. (Shame on me, I have neglected my bike... )
The valves get tighter. The valve seats wear cousing the clearance to tighten up. Should be ajusted every 6000m I think. The only time the valves have a chance to cool is when they are closed. Can be a big problem with exaust vales! Hope this helps.
R.D
"Don't take life too seriosly,because you'll neve get out of it alive anyway."
JayTee wrote:Should I assume that the valves were adjusted too tight by the dealer, or do the oilhead valve clearances have a tendency to get tighter?
I also found tight exhausts at 37k miles and I am convinced that the dealer hadn't bothered checking them during the 36k service. I do my own work now and I congratulate you for doing the same.
Sledge is correct: the seat of the valves wears, and that makes the valves tighter. If you had not corrected the problem in time you would have ended with a burnt valve.
What is a valve adjustment? Anyone have a tutorial with pictures? My bike is still under factory warrenty and will be for the next 3 years, but once the warrenty is done... My dealership does offer Saturday morning classes on doing your own maintnanace, which I find rather odd, but then this same dealership also employees people in its Motorrad department that actually ride BMW bikes. Way cool. If this dealership keeps treating me as well as they have, I may just end up buying another bike or car there.
'05 R 1150 R Dark Ferro, with blacked out motor Member # 507
there are lnks to tutorials in the links section of this site. adjusting the valves isn't overly hard, but definitely is a neccessary thing. i'm not a major wrench, but accomplished it without too much pain last weekend. probably the dealers skip over it if it is anywhere close.
here is the link in case you can't find it, also it was posted on another thread recently but it's a great info page... http://home.mindspring.com/~jabrooks/
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