Doing a valve adjustment on my 85 VF500

I'm thinking I might dig into it tomorrow.

It's got about 900 miles on the engine rebuild, has a pretty loud ticking coming from the rear cams, front sound good.

Any suggestions before I tear this apart and go for it? All I have is the Clymers magazine, and the few pages I could find posted in other threads, what are the things I should be aware of with this project?

Thanks for any help!

 

I'm sure you've already read the big ones: use two feeler gauges, make sure rocker is touching the base circle of the lobe, etc. Take your time and it should turn out just fine.

 

Here's some info that you might be able to use. I adjusted V4 valves for the first time on my VF500F when I bought it last fall. I did not have access to the "special tool" so did without it. To position the camshafts, I used the "in gear rotate the rear wheel" method with the spark plugs out, worked great. I simply adjusted the rockers with the heel of the cam lobes positioned on the rocker arms using the "two feeler" method which I found to work best for me. Using 1 feeler between the rocker and the cam lobe did not produce consistent results for me. I rechecked through one complete engine cycle, buttoned it up. When I got everything back together, engine runs smoothly with no alarming ticks or knocks. I'm sure that you will get more advice, put it all together to make your decision on how to go about it.

Motorcycling -- The Honda V4 Files and More

 

Well, the deed is done, it wasn't all easy, had some problems I ran into, but It sounds better, may not be perfect yet though.

What kind of clearances do you give on the .004 and .005 measurements? The whole resistance thing is hard to decide how much resistances is the right amount.

I had a problem with the adjuster bolt and nuts on the 4th cylinder intake. They felt like they had something wrong with the threads, so when screwing them up too high, they would get stuck to where I couldn't hold the top of the bolt with plyers while turning the nut. I'd guess if I had the right tool to hold the tops of the bolts it would have gone better. And at one point I dropped one of them down under the cam chain, had to run to Home Depot to get a magnet to get it out.

I adjusted them all, then checked them all and had to re-adjust 2 cylinders total. After that everything felt like it was pretty close to correct. I may look at getting a tool to hold the top of the bolts, and re-do the process since now that I know how to do it I think it would only take an hour or two to get it done.

The rear valves all sound good, the front ones are both a little bit louder but not bad.

What types of things do you hear with valves being too tight and being too loose? Is it better to leave them a touch looser than to tighten them too much?

 

Pliers ?? ..... Pliers?? Using the correct tools is critical, and pliers should have no role in this operation. The proper tool is a box end 10mm wrench to loosen and hold the locknut while you turn the screw with a screwdriver. Pliers cannot tighten the locknut properly.

A bit loose is better than too tight.

 

I read somewhere how to make a holding tool for the adjustment screws using a deck screw that has a square drive hole. Here's a pic of the one I made.

 

When I do this I dont hold the adjustment screw at all. I leave it a touch loose and let it turn when i tighten the lock nut. After i tighten the nut i just check it and if it's too tight i losen the nut and back the screw out a touch. I've tried everything to hold the screw in place and have determined this is near impossible to do. Im sure you do this but it's worth mentioning that i leave the feelers in during the tightening process.

There is a specific tourque for the lock nuts also and it says in the shop manual that it is critical that you tighten them to the correct torque value or they can become loose

 

+1 on using the right tool for the job.

Honda offers two tools, a deep offset box end wrench and a tappet holder, for adjusting the lash. These tools are not expensive and make the procedure much easier.

This said, I am all for Yankee ingenuity and admire the creativity shown in fabricating the square drive screw tool, as seen above, but using pliers here is not the way to go.

 

I would have to agree with the s-man even how we don't see eye to eye he's right pliers are not the right tool for the job not for something this critical

 

The heads on the bolts are the very small square, that is where I was using the pliers, to hold that in place while tightening down the locknuts with an 8MM wrench. I'll probably try to find the proper tappet tool and re-adjust the valves at some point soon, just didn't have it and wasn't aware that it was necessary to have the special tools.

 

You are correct in the lock nuts being 8mm on the VF500F. The OEM tools (especially the deep offset box end wrench) will make adjusting the lash much easier. The part numbers for these tools are located in the FSM.

 

It sounds like what you did was just fine. It's not critical how you hold the screw but rather that it doesn't move while tightening the nut. Keep up the good work!

 

For reference the tappet heads are square and not slotted as SM noted in his post. The 10mm lock nuts and slotted heads are used on the larger displacement VF engines.

 

A bit more intel can be found here:

http://vfrworld.com/forums/1st-2nd-generation-1983-1989/34491-vf500f-valve-lash-adjustment-oem-tools.html#post310444