Valve Clearance Adjustment Time !

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone,

Well, it is time to check the valve clearance on my GS700ES.

20 years ago, (when I was younger, and had more patience) I performed a valve clearance adjustment on my 1980 GS750L. As far as I remember, everything went OK.

Is there anything that I should be reminded of?

I went to the local Suzuki dealer and purchased a valve cover gasket. (I was kinda' surprised that he had 9 of them in stock)

I also asked the parts guy about a gasket for the ignition cover......he said the parts list from Suzuki doesn't show one, "so there must not be one." I can't remember if there was one, or not. The Clymer service manual does not mention if there is a gasket. I have a hard time believing that the cover is screwed directly to the side of the engine without at least some type of a paper gasket. Do you know if there is one?

I'm going to perform the adjustment on Tuesday, 4-13-04.......any last minute spointers or suggestions ?

markn.

[10yeareer]

My GS 650 didn't need a gasget for the ignition cover. There is cardboard under the cover. I needed a thickness guage smaller than my handy craftsman one that only went to .05 mm. I bought the suzuki one, and found all my clearances to be 0.

The biggest pain about the entire thing was getting the valve cover gasket off. I carefully used a razor blade for most of it. I found using a brass wheel on a dremel tool worked well for the stubborn stuff. However, if you got that route pick up at least three brass wheels.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

By the picture, you have a 700 or 750 "ES", I never worked on one of them, but presume they are exactly like the 1100's. Suzuki has a little tool to hold the adjuster, while tightening & loosening the lock nut, it makes things much easier. If you trim your feeler guage blade to apprx. 1/4" wide, it is much easier to get it down in there, to the top of the valve stem. As far as I remember all bikes had an ignition cover gasket, usually a very thin paper gasket

[Billy Ricks]

As rphillips suggested trim the blade of the guage down. I've got mine trimmed so I have a little over a 1/8" wide by 1/2" tongue on the end of the blade. Make sure you tighten the locknut down good and snug. You can spin the adjuster right out of the rocker under hard acceleration if they aren't tight. A good 9mm boxend and a small set of vice grips will get the job done if you done have the right tool. Stuff a rag in the cam chain area so you don't lose anything inside the engine. If you don't have the manual you adjust one batch of valves with the slots of the cams facing each other and the other half with the slots away from each other. You can tell which ones are off the lobes. The gaskets on the '83 and up 700/750 and 1150 models were thick rubber and easy to work with.

[oldschoolGS]

Also, since each rocker has two adjusters on it, make sure you have two feeler gauges and do both adjusters on each individual rocker at the same time. This keeps everything square and gives you a more accurate measurement. Suzuki's tool for spinning the adjuster screws is easy to use and worth the few bucks as the head on these adjuster screws is square, very small, and hard to hold still while you tighten the locknut. I am using hardened allen headed adjuster screws in mine, which are much easier to adjust. Good Luck, Ed.
1983 GS750ED
2001 TL1000S

[Anonymous]

Thanks for all the advice !

I'll let you guys know how everything goes.

markn.

[KEITH KRAUSE]

Also, be sure the motor is stone cold.

[chuckycheese]

Hard

I've always thought it sounded like a fairly hard job :? .....how much would a shop charge to adjust the valves??

[KEITH KRAUSE]

Re: Hard

I've always thought it sounded like a fairly hard job :? .....how much would a shop charge to adjust the valves??

Depends on the shop. Shops here average $60+/hr. I would guess they would charge at least 2 hours or more for my bike.

[mcycle-nut]

Re: Hard

I've always thought it sounded like a fairly hard job :? .....how much would a shop charge to adjust the valves??

Depends on the shop. Shops here average $60+/hr. I would guess they would charge at least 2 hours or more for my bike.

Wouldn't it depend on how many have to be adjusted? I checked the ones on my 1100, and only two were out. Adjusting two valves takes a lot less time than adjusting sixteen! 8)

[chuckycheese]

Thanks

Thanks for the information. They charge about $60 an hour here, too, but I didn't know how long it would take to check/adjust them.

[Anonymous]

I got the valves adjusted.

All the valves were all tight. They were all less than 0.004"

It took me about three hours......there's a lot of stuff that needs to be removed before the actual adjustments can be made.

I found out that the guy who adjusted the valves the last time slightly over-tightened one of the valve cover screws.....the one under the backbone of the frame, of course ! He did a little damage to the threads, but I was able to rectify the problem by wrapping a small piece of coarse steel wool around the threads of the screw before inserting. Actually, I read about doing that on the GS Resources website a few years ago. It worked great. I was able to get the proper torque on the screw. (it sorta' works like a heli-coil)

I did notice that the engine now has a slight "tick-tick-tick" sound that is normally present in the TSCC engine at idle. I was assured by a local mechanic who drag-races GS Suzuki powered motorcycles that there should be a slight ticking noise when the valve tappets are set at 0.005".....mine were all set closer to 0.004" ......I'm sure glad I checked them !

Is it possible that engine R.P.M. could slightly increase at idle after loosening-up valves that had become tight over the years?

The bike runs better than ever, and it doesn't leak a drop of oil. I was able to re-use the valve cover gasket, which made me happy......a new gasket from Suzuki costs $34.00 !

I would recommend purchasing the special-made tool from Suzuki that holds the top of the screw-adjuster when tightening the locking-nut. I spent the most time trying to hold the stem in one place while tightening the lock nut.

Thanks for the advice everyone !

markn.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like things went well, The next time will be a lot quicker, especially if you get one of the little tools. I'm just wondering, nothing is wrong with .005 clearence, but I thought the specs were .003 to .005. It seems .004 would be perfect. Is there a good reason for setting them at .005? Seems like this would be very close to out of spec

[Dark Jedi]

here's a question:

Do the valves toend to narrow or widen the clearance over time?

[Anonymous]

I was told that they tighten-up over time.......which was what happened in my case.

I stated that my tappets were less than 0.004" when I checked them.......I should have said that they were more like 0.004" maximum because several were less than 0.003"

My engine now has the familiar "tick-tick-tick" of the TSCC engine when it is at idle. My local GS Suzuki drag racer said that it is better to have the valves set on the high end of the range because they tend to tighten-up over time, and a little looser is better than a little too tight.

I'm still wondering if anyone else has experienced increased R.P.M.s at idle after loosening their tappets.

markn.