Valve adjustment might be in order..

I went out for a little ride this past week. When I parked and took off my helmet, I noticed that noise. What do that sound like? I need to open it up and check the clearances. By the way, the bike isn't burning oil. It's not back-firing. And it's pulling evenly and quickly in all gears.

Question: My manual says that the camshafts need to removed to have the shims replaced. Correct? So I won't be need any specialty tools? I know Motion Pro makes a tool to depress the buckets to slide out the shims. But mine are under the valve lifters... correct?

I read this online to a similar question (just putting it out there):
Your bike does not have hydraulic valve lifters, so forget that idea. On engines with the design of yours, the valve clearance lessens with time and you won't hear any tapping at all. If the clearances are at the maximum, it's not uncommon to hear some tappet noise and I wouldn't worry. Do as guardrail jim said and change the oil if it hasn't been changed recently. On my old KZ1000, there were certain brands of oil that would start tapping way sooner than others and that was a good sign it was time to change it.

Thank you guys. Btw, is our search feature gone for good?
LH

On the KZ550-M1 you must remove the cams to replace the shims. Depressing stuff doesn't help at all because the shim is under the little inverted bucket that the cam rides against (see diagram below). So to get to the shim you must remove the bucket, and to remove the bucket you must remove the cam.

The KZRIDER search feature still works fine. Just put your cursor on "FORUM" and then in the green drop down menu click on "SEARCH." Ed

Make sure you read Loudhvx's warning under his threads on mistakes in the manual too on the 550 ..... sure he will chime in but just to be sure.

Good news if you have shim under bucket, a better design with less chance of spitting shims.
Re-shimming is a bit harder though.

You can use cable ties to keep the valve timing correct, just keep the chain tight around the crank and check carefully afterwards.




You really want a big set of feeler guages, the 10 blade types sold in car shops don't have enough blades.



Rubber sucker used for grinding-in valves handy here for lifting the buckets:



Be precise on your measurements, I prefer TDC checking two at a time as per manual - cam pointing away from valve works fine too -either method works, both ways you are checking the base circle of the cam .




You have over 40 bolts to undo here, an air tool or cordless drill will be handy. Once set correctly your clearances will stay in spec for a long time. Hope this helps.

One last thing, try to work around the bike, rather than over it. Bolts or dowels dropped down the camchain tunnel can really ruin your day.

Guys, thank you for all the input! I have to say, with the endless amount of info on the web, I spend the most time on this site. Thanks again. I'll get to this as soon as all these storms calm down in Texas. It's been a month long fight against Mother Nature.