Valve Inspection and General Wrenching

Well, after upgrading to my VFR this spring, I have been lucky to put on enough miles to get to the 16K mile valve inspection (actually am at 17K, but I figured it could wait a little longer!). I am an M.E. by trade, which depending on who you asks could make me both more and less qualified to do my own wrenching (sadly, with many of my coworkers I think less may be more likely).

But, i've undertaken my share of projects in the past, so I didn't flinch too much when I realized a valve inspection was in order this winter.

I tore into the bike this afternoon. Getting into the bike is not-surprisingly, pretty straight forward. I am fortunate in that the valves I have checked (cylinders 1/3) are all within spec and generally more towards the 'center' of spec than the tight side. So I am content to leave them. Tomorrow i'll do the front cylinders (too much hunching over/sitting indian style led to the end of my day).

My experience has been positive. I was nervous when it came time to pull the cams, but the service manual is good for calming the nerves. I would say for someone who is an average wrench, this is a doable task. In fact I was surprised by how few tools I needed to get down to the valve covers.

I did find two interesting things that i'll be glad to have in order: a loose bolt holding the cylinder 1 coil in (I don't know how this could have gotten so loose. The PO clearly had never been this deep in the bike). And, the frame sliders I have required the PO to drill a hole through the coolant reservoir, and the good he used to seal it was giving up the ghost. So that has been repaired and hopefully it will no longer leak.

Remaining tasks are:

Replace clutch disks/springs. I've had a catching feeling when launching hard, and the only similar experience i've found on here was remedied by replacing the clutch.
Flush clutch fluid
Hide my heated grips wires better
Maybe HIDs for the low beams (depending on what santa brings!)
lastly, sync the starter-circuit

This last task, starter circuit tuning, I thought was like the throttle body syncing I had done on my Yamaha in the past. But in reading the service manual it has some references to "vacuum". I was going to do this task with my home made manometer, but i'm not sure this will work in suction...Does anyone have any experience in this situation? Does the starter valve syncing draw a vacuum? In which case is it something you have to do with a dial gauge or can it be done with a manometer?

Thanks in advance for anyone's feedback! Hopefully everyone has a great holidays.

 

See thread on LED headlights and save yourself big $$$

 

As far as the Starter circuit syncing goes this is the ref vid that I used...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sj33NXnm1c

 

Well, as set of low beam HIDs from DDM tuning would be $27. I used these before on my Yamaha and found the increase in light nice, although it is true that the pattern changes. This I am less worried about. It makes me selfish but a little extra glare to other motorists is ok by me because (hopefully) it means they are more likely to notice me and not turn in front of me.

http://www.ddmtuning.com/Products/DDM-HID-Kit-Slim-Ballast-35W-or-55W

I haven't found a comparably cheap set of LED lights. Maybe I haven't been looking hard enough?

I did find that my flickering headlight was being cause by a melting low beam connector. This was replaced by a $3 piece from autozone which had to be spliced in.

Doing the starter valve sync was no different than any other bike i've done it on. Not sure why I got myself all confused. I think I could do a better job come spring time, since I was rushing doing it in the 25* cold of MI. In the spring i'll likely replace the air-filter and while i'm in there i'll give syncing the starter circuit another go.

Since checking the valves and finding them all in spec and replacing the cams i've put ~50 miles on and have found no issues. No leaks yet, not engine explosion, no funny noises. Hopefully this means I put it all back together correctly and i'll be happy to not have to do this for a long while. I think i'll want until the ~48K mile inspection to dive in again. So that should give me a few solid years or riding without the hastle.

 

I'm puzzled. You found valves in spec but you removed the cams ???