Valve clearence questions

Good to know, thank you.

I actually have the whole tensioner assembly taken out already, and will not reinstall the valve cover until everything is done.
I have to change gaskets and seals from the cylinder base and up due to small leaks.
And when I am already having the top disassembled, I am going to take a recommendation and have the valve seats looked at by a shop and possibly changed if needed.
So will just make correct measurements of the clearances, then have a look at the current shims and decide what shims needs to be swapped.
When that's done, I'm gonna have the shop look at the valves and change/fix the valves and seats as needed and fit new shims for me.

So at the moment, all that is covering the engine and it's openings, is a double folded bedsheet (and rags in the inlets and exhausts)

Make sure the shop knows about the valve cover/chain issue. Most mechanics have no clue on this and will mess things up.

loudhvx wrote: Make sure the shop knows about the valve cover/chain issue. Most mechanics have no clue on this and will mess things up.

I don't think that will be necessary, since all I will bring them would be the cylinder head.
They only get to do what I can't do myself, namely change the valves and/or valve seats if needed.

Make sure they don't hog out too much seat. A three angle is good but all that's needed is a clean up on the seat itself. May have to "tip" the valves. What shim sizes are you at?
Steve

I don't know yet what shim sizes I am at... I havn't had time to go to the garage and pick up the buckets and check.
WIll do that in beginning of next week,

That will tell you the wear on the valves,
Steve

The shop talk reminds me of my 1982 GPZ1100 that the top end was shot in 1983 at 20,000 miles. Kawasaki rebuilt the top end, then I checked the clearances 500 miles later and all were zero and they had 200 shims in all 8. I guess they figured since they ruined the valve job by excess grinding the best remedy to no valve clearance was the thinnest shims and good to go.

So you had the valves "tipped" and had some room?
Steve

So, finally, I went to measure the shims, retorque the camshafts and take new measurements.
Unfortunately I don't own a digital caliper, so I couldn't get down to exact on the 0.05 mm, but most of the shims seemed to be 2.25mm, one of them seemed to be something like 2.05 or 2.10, and only 3 of the 8 was stamped with 240 and 230.

So, wrote the sizes down and started to retorque the camshafts.
(Since I anyway will leave the head at a shop to have them look at the valve seats, I though I could aswell ask them to measure the shims as well, so I didn't need to be that exact, as long as I got the clearances right).

Anyway, while retorquing the camshafts, I find that one of the bolts refuse to get properly torqued.
No matter how much I torque it, it just continues to spin in its seat.
Picked it up and together with it came something that looked like a spring. (helicoil).
So, I guess that head is screwed... fortunately, I got a spare head I bought of ebay earlier because I was quite sure something was actually wrong with the head and when I found a replacement at a decent price that, according to the pictures looked good, I decided to get it.

So, it got down to picking out the shafts and preparing to swap the head, measure the clearances, take the head off again and take it to the shop and have the valves and seats looked at and having the shims properly measured and swapped for new ones that will fit better.

As an added bonus, the finnish of the spare head is much better, so the bike will look a lot better with that on.

You don't have to scrap the head because some threads are stripped. Get a proper insert installed, maybe even a solid insert like a Timesert.

BTW, before tightening the cam cap screws it's best to clamp the cam down into the head using vice grips. This puts far less stress on the threads.

We'll see regarding the insert, I mean, I got a spare head so I might as well use that one, and either get an insert at some point for the current head, or sell it (and of course, tell the buyer that they need to fit an insert before using it).

When it comes to the vice grips, you are right, I should invest in a pair of those.
When I torqued it down now, I was aware that without something holding the cam, I was putting stress on the threads, so I had a friend helping me so we could tighten 4 screws at a time, one half turn at a time to even out the pressure along the whole shaft.

Get a micrometer, and make sure it's a good one. You can get used top brands on ebay fro pretty cheap. Mitutoyo, Starrett, Brown&Sharpe etc. The shims are sometimes not exact .05 increments, so it's nice to know exactly what you have. A caliper won't be precise enough.