Valve Adjustment

maurice

Nitrous
Joined
May 2, 2020
Messages
1,395
Location
Tucson,AZ
Ride
2020 R3 GT
I am curious about the adjustment necessity, is every 20k as manual says needed? On the vtx 1800 many just did the first one saying the valves did not move after that when they did check. Sold one of mine at 75k and only did the first one, bike sounded and ran great. Do you check/adjust the rockets per manual?
Dealer said 6.5 hrs labor. Ouch!
 
Can you check clearances yourself first, so you know if an adjustment is even necessary?
 
R-III-R Turbo said:
Can you check clearances yourself first, so you know if an adjustment is even necessary?
Click to expand...

You sure can. Take a gander at the service manual, pretty easy. Pull the valve cover off, yank the plugs for easy rotation of the engine and rotate so cam lobes don't touch the shims and measure that gap with feeler gauge.

I wonder how many bikes actually require valve shim adjustments?
 
Only caution, from much discussion on this site over the years, is to pay particularly close attention to removing and reinstalling the valve cover gasket.

A number of captains have reused them with multiple instances of remove and replace.

Others have been less fortunate.
 
You can skip any maintenance you choose. Sometimes you can get away with it sometimes you can’t. Preventing problems is what we are really attempting to do.

Also, just because it seems to be running fine means nothing as far as valve clearance is concerned.

I try to do all my PM stuff in the off season. That way if I have to order parts or need more time I just leave it apart til I can get back to it.
 
A tight valve clearance makes no noise. I am coming up on a valve clearance check soon and will post in detail. This will include the valve cover gasket. Since owning the bike every time i have done a clearance check i have had to replace shims. At almost 70,000 miles i have done this job a few times. Never had a valve cover leak yet and do not plan on it.
 
Ok I'll bite sonce @maurice , since your avatar has a GT in it. I have to ask which generation rocket are you asking about?
 
warp9.9 said:
Ok I'll bite sonce @maurice , since your avatar has a GT in it. I have to ask which generation rocket are you asking about?
Click to expand...
I have the 2020 but asked about rockets in general thinking these have not been out long enough. Maybe these valves are that different?
 
Last edited:
The old Rockets are shim over bucket and some dudes apparently use a tool for changing them without removing the cams.
The new Rockets are shim under bucket so no such luck
 
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