Valve Adjustment question

[ducpainter]

Well I took my belts off and tried again... no real difference.
Have only gotten to my vertical intake so far because I'm getting a little frustrated.
I measure the intake opener again at .0055.
Now either my closer is right on, or extremely loose, it is impossible for me to tell because I have nothing to judge it against.  If I press lightly, I can't get any bigger feelers on top of the opener.  If I press harder, the harder I press the bigger feelers I can get in.  But there is no point at which there is a different feeling which would let me know I'm flexing the arm vs. getting the correct reading.
I can spin the closer shim with my fingers without putting pressure on the arm, it takes a little effort.  With some pressure it spins freely, if this helps at all.
Thoughts?

Try this...

rotate the cam back and forth slightly to see how it feels. It should be nice and smooth without any drag from the rocker. Then push down on the rocker until you just feel drag on the cam as you rotate it.

That is how hard you need to push to measure.

[Speeddog]

What he just said ^.

[Nomad]

I'm assuming this can be done without pushing the cam over past the spring loaded portion of its travel?
I actually got so fed up with this today I put new belts on and buttoned everything back up and just figured I'd have the dealer do it.  But then I got the quote, 250-350 euro... With the exchange rate today that puts it at about Eleventy billion dollars... So I may take another crack at this.
The bike has just shy of 21k miles on it, so things SHOULD be pretty close to where they are supposed to be, yes?

[ducpainter]

I'm assuming this can be done without pushing the cam over past the spring loaded portion of its travel?
I actually got so fed up with this today I put new belts on and buttoned everything back up and just figured I'd have the dealer do it.  But then I got the quote, 250-350 euro... With the exchange rate today that puts it at about Eleventy billion dollars... So I may take another crack at this.
The bike has just shy of 21k miles on it, so things SHOULD be pretty close to where they are supposed to be, yes?

Yes...you just need to rotate it 15-20 degrees.

Why would you think things are right? It really depends on the tolerances the last tech went by.

Like I said earlier...don't give up.

[EEL]

Its really hard to explain these "feel" steps on a forum.

Heres an easy way to understand this. Shift the opening rocker over to the side and take off the opening shim. With the opening rocker completely out of the way, spin the cam three full turns. If it feels like it jams up along any portion of of the spin your closer is too tight if it doesnt your closer is either too loose or perfect.

If you have a loose shim and you want to know what binding feels like, push down on top of the closing rocker arm with your thumb while spinning the shim.

[ducpainter]

Its really hard to explain these "feel" steps on a forum.

Heres an easy way to understand this. Shift the opening rocker over to the side and take off the opening shim. With the opening rocker completely out of the way, spin the cam three full turns. If it feels like it jams up along any portion of of the spin your closer is too tight if it doesnt your closer is either too loose or perfect.

If you have a loose shim and you want to know what binding feels like, push down on top of the closing rocker arm with your thumb while spinning the shim.

Why would you try to turn it past the assist spring?

That will feel like binding to the uninitiated...no?

[EEL]

BTW.

Personal experience: Its really hard to measure the closer clearance so I usually dont measure the closer. Feel is best. Spinning the cam with tell you if its tight but not if its loose. It takes multiple iterations of valve adjustment experience to know what the perfect feel is closer without measuring.

Important characteristics of a properly adjusted closer:

If you spin the shim there's a bit of resistance. It almost feels tight. If you can spin the shim with one finger its definitely loose. My best analogy is if you drench your fingers in motor oil and grab on to the closer shim, its should be tight enough that you cant spin it, your hands would just slip around it. If you have a pair of dry, clean hands, you should be able to spin it with a moderate amount of effort.

If you meet the above criteria AND the cam is not binding when you spin it, you should be golden.

[Ddan]

Why would you try to turn it past the assist spring?

That will feel like binding to the uninitiated...no?

With the opener out of the way there is no resistance from the spring

[EEL]

Exactly! Makes life a lot easier. You dont have to deal with the drag on the opening rocker arm.

[ducpainter]

BTW.

Personal experience: Its really hard to measure the closer clearance so I usually dont measure the closer. Feel is best. Spinning the cam with tell you if its tight but not if its loose. It takes multiple iterations of valve adjustment experience to know what the perfect feel is closer without measuring.

Important characteristics of a properly adjusted closer:

If you spin the shim there's a bit of resistance. It almost feels tight. If you can spin the shim with one finger its definitely loose. My best analogy is if you drench your fingers in motor oil and grab on to the closer shim, its should be tight enough that you cant spin it, your hands would just slip around it. If you have a pair of dry, clean hands, you should be able to spin it with a moderate amount of effort.

If you meet the above criteria AND the cam is not binding when you spin it, you should be golden.

That's what I was trying to explain earlier with the heel of the hand thing.

[ducpainter]

Exactly! Makes life a lot easier. You dont have to deal with the drag on the opening rocker arm.

I never considered measuring the closer with the opening rocker in place.

[Nomad]

Thanks fellas, I will try this again, waiting on a new speedo drive before I can mount my front wheel anyway, so I have some time before the thing will move anyway.  Will try all the suggestions.  From the descriptions so far I suspect my closer is acceptable.  Luckily after everything else I've done, installing new belts seemed easy, so no big deal to take those off again.
Oh, and my comment on suspecting that things should be fairly close to how they should be; my understanding was that the more miles are on your engine the more seated your valves will be and the less they will change.

[ducpainter]

Thanks fellas, I will try this again, waiting on a new speedo drive before I can mount my front wheel anyway, so I have some time before the thing will move anyway.  Will try all the suggestions.  From the descriptions so far I suspect my closer is acceptable.  Luckily after everything else I've done, installing new belts seemed easy, so no big deal to take those off again.
Oh, and my comment on suspecting that things should be fairly close to how they should be; my understanding was that the more miles are on your engine the more seated your valves will be and the less they will change.

That's true, but you're assuming the last adjustment was done correctly, or rather to the tolerances you'd like to see.

[EEL]

Valves may be seated but what I had happen at 20-24k miles  was mycloser retaining shims broke into 2 pieces on my vertical head. If you end up getting new retaining clips, these will change your tolerance as they are not broken in initially and will be by your next valve adjustment interval. I ended up getting MBP collets when this happened so I wouldnt have to deal with it again.

[ducpainter]

Valves may be seated but what I had happen at 20-24k miles  was mycloser retaining shims broke into 2 pieces on my vertical head. If you end up getting new retaining clips, these will change your tolerance as they are not broken in initially and will be by your next valve adjustment interval. I ended up getting MBP collets when this happened so I wouldnt have to deal with it again.

Flipping the half rings will also change the clearance, and end up with a closer that is roughly .001 loose almost immediately on start up.