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Valve adjustment question on 04 RT

Roy.Jackson55@aol.com

You stupid, fix it!
I usually adjust my 04 RT valves my self. I had them done the last time I brought the bike in for some service. My question is, after an adjustment do the valves tend to get loose or tighter over time. Or is it sometimes looser or sometimes tighter. Why I'm asking is that after 5000 + miles all eight were still in tolerance, though a little on the tight side as to how I have adjusted them over the years. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
 
Under normal conditions, the valve clearance will tighten due to wear of the valve seat.
I set mine at the loose end of the tolerance range. It leaves the valve on its seat a bit longer, which allows more heat to transfer. That also allows more time between valve adjustments.

If the clearance tightens up so that adjustment is needed every 6000 miles, say, then there's a problem. Probably with recession.
My RT has 82k miles on it and needs only very slight or no adjusment every 12000 miles.
 
Wear is often offsetting. Valve seat wear causes the clearances to tighten. Any wear on the cam followers or rocker arms (where applicable) causes the clearances to open up. After a few hundred thousand miles the valve seat wear will be enough that it speeds up or you start to get compression losses. At this point the wear becomes noticed but until then you may have wear that just isn't noticed with a feeler gauge.
 
Good point. I didn't take that into consideration.
In the normal life of an engine would not the valve seat wear sooner/faster than the cam follower/rocker arm?
 
Good point. I didn't take that into consideration.
In the normal life of an engine would not the valve seat wear sooner/faster than the cam follower/rocker arm?

That used to be true. I'm not so sure any more. BMW finally with the 2nd generation "new"valve seats in the airheads, and the seats in the K bikes and Oilheads has valve seats and valves that don't wear very fast. I had 370K miles on a K 75 with no discernible wear (note the offsetting wear mentioned) and Voni's R1100RS got new exhaust valves in re-touched seats at 300K miles. It actually got new cam followers sooner than that due to wear of the followers (lifters) and their bores. And yes, for those who always ask the question - I do consider wear of the cam followers and bores an oil related failure.
 
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As a part of my normal service, I keep a record of which valves (if any) needed adjusting, and if it was tight or loose. This tells me over the long-term if any unusual wear is occurring. The form below is a part of my records; I enter a check if the valve was OK, a T if it was tight, or an L if it was loose.
 

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As a part of my normal service, I keep a record of which valves (if any) needed adjusting, and if it was tight or loose. This tells me over the long-term if any unusual wear is occurring. The form below is a part of my records; I enter a check if the valve was OK, a T if it was tight, or an L if it was loose.

Very nice, I saved and down loaded this form.Do you mind if I share with my local club members.
 
Feel free to offer it to everybody! I created it for my spiral-bound notebook (the log of all work & receipts), so there's no copyright. Juggle the column widths to fit your own format.
 
I have a 2002 GS with 108,000 miles on it. I check the valves once a year, it's been a good 5 years since I've had to adjust one.
 
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