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Valve clearance measuring method
- apbling
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I've noticed this several times and curious what people do and if it actually matters.
For both my 550 and my 750 I sold one manual says to tighten down the cams but no pattern, but the OEM one gives a pattern. I think this may be important. But, the aftermarket manual says to just point the cams 180 away from the buckets and measure. The OEM manual says to have the cams at certain positions on the crank (like tdc and such). Is there really much of a difference when actually measuring them? I wish I found the oem manual on my pc last night BEFORE I measured them the 180 deg way and took the cams out.
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- SWest
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- 10 22 2014
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Steve
Oh, the idea is to tighten the cams down evenly so as to not get them cocked to one side or the other.
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- apbling
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- SWest
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- apbling
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- SWest
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- Nessism
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- apbling
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- martin_csr
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Thanks. Is this why the factory service manual shows the cam parallel to the cylinder head, instead of directly away from the bucket? I was thinking it was simply a quicker way for the mechanics to do it, using the timing marks to set the camshafts.Nessism wrote: When you measure by pointing the cams away from the bucket than the adjacent valve will be pushing up on the cam and skewing it in the journal clearance. This method results in your thinking there is more clearance than there actually is while the engine is running. Make sure to adjust the clearances to the wide end of the specification range if you measure this way.
apbling, not sure if you did it or if it will always matter, but the manual says to re-torque the cam cap bolts before doing the valve clearance procedure. If those are loose, I would assume there would be some slop in the measurement.
Here's how I record the numbers --- drawing scanned from the manual.
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- loudhvx
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If it would be better to shoot for the wider end of the range, the designer would have moved the range accordingly. They expect you to aim for the middle of the range, or better yet, follow the manual's instruction on when to change a shim and to what size. Then you are doing what they expect and things happen as they predict accordingly. Trying to make up your own maintenance procedures is a bad idea when it is already spelled out.
1981 KZ550 D1 gpz.
Kz550 valve train warning.
Other links.
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- apbling
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Every single time I use the Clymer book, I like it less and less and less. I have both of them, but the Clymer is a little handier because I have it in my hand, whereas the OEM one I have a tablet I use to view it - I've printed manuals out before and put them in binders, but I always end up ripping pages or I get irritated with the cumbersome binder.
I actually find the Clymer method easier than the OEM method. Don't have to look a the timing marks and such, just rotate it around til one of the cams is pointing away and go with it. BUT, for an extra 5 sec of effort I'll be using the OEM method from here on out.
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