Bonneville America Forums: Valve adjustment / clearance check

After combining all the info I could find from the old posts I was able to come up with a plan to check my clearance. Thanks to Moe and others. I am going to cut and past some info if anybody else wants to do it and maybe I will be able to put some pics in. If not they are in my gallery.

Moe wrote:
Think about a valve adjustment check when the valves get too loud. The original miles check was at the 8K mark but the recommendations have changed to the 12K mark. A friend has a 2001 bonneville and has never adjusted his valves. He has just over 30K on his bike too. He did check the clearances at the 25K mark and the valves clearances where fine.

So check your clearances if in doubt. Make sure the motor is at room temperature. That means a 24 hr cool down to be sure. I would recommend buying a METRIC set of feeler gauges. Pop off the pillion pad, saddle, tank console, and fuel tank. Displace the wiring harness to the left of the top tube. Remove the camshaft cover to the right of the bike. Remove the spark plugs then while the rear wheel is off the ground and the bike is in a soft gear, rotate the rear wheel as needed to check the clearances. Write the clearances down! Zip her back up and your done.

Need adjustment?

Buy a device that will measure the shim thicknesses.
Purchase in advance the sealing washers for the oil cross over tube
Purchase in advance the little o-ring for the oil cross over tube.
Consider purchasing the Pre-tensioner tool and lock ring pins.
Consider a new camshaft cover gasket.
Consider new camshaft cover washers.
Consider new spark plugs.
Consider new oil and oil filter.

Now all you have to wait for will be the shims needed should the dealer not have the size you need in stock.

Timing alignment. Do not rotate the engine once you have the camshafts aligned per the pic in the shop manual. Replace the camshafts as they are in that picture. You do not need to remove the side cover (alternator cover?) to do this job.

The shims are round coins of hardened metal. The thickness is inked on the side contacting the bucket and may wear off, thus the need for the micrometer. You will have to remove the camshafts to do observe this. Regarding removing the shims without camshaft removal. Good luck if you try! Not recommended....

You may be able to use some of your shims on other bucket locations. Careful of the pre-tensioned backlash gears. That is donâ€™t loose the pretension. OIL EVERYTHING that needs it, LIBERALLY when reinstalling. When reinstalling the camshafts, the intake camshaft is the beech. She will not want to â€™drop inâ€™ like the exhaust one will.
Place the intake camshaft into a position that looks like one tooth off and think like a concrete vibrating tool. The camshaft will settle into place with the marks aligned. (This is when the pre-tension may discharge and why the majority of dealer jobs fail to pretension the intakeâ€™s backlash gear.)

Bolts on the bearing caps. Bring to torque then re-check the clearances. Good to go? Then ensure the cross over tube is put back with the new o-ring and brass washer(s). Torque it all down. And zip her up. You should be good for a long time.

The last time I adjusted my valves was at the 12K marks. Iâ€™m now at the 30.5 mark and everything sounds good. I am going to check them soon but like I wrote above, checking the clearances is not a big deal. Reshimming is a little more involved and the biggest issue is obtaining the shims you may need.

Work the math to determine which shim(s) you need, not to determine the nearest sizes you could use that the dealer has in stock.

Some dealers will swap out the shims you need for the ones you do not need. Should the dealer need to order the shims, they should piggy-back that small order on one of their weekly orders to Nenwnan. If they want to charge you freight, laugh and comment on what a good sense of humor they have! Keep a log of the final shims you used at each of the eight bucket locations
Intake are 0.15-0.20mm valve clearance
Exhaust are 0.25-0.30mm valve clearance

Thanks Moe. Hopefully some pics will post.

Edited by beanache (01/25/05 10:00 PM)