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Post by bayrider on Apr 26, 2021 20:33:01 GMT -6
Hi folks; I'm a new account on the forum, but been reading a while. Bought an '88 back in 2019 and have been having a blast ever since. Started getting paranoid about what I heard coming from the cylinder head (nothing in particular, but convinced myself I heard some kind of grinding/slapping) after 6k miles and decided it was time to take the head cover off. Chain was tight, and nothing else loose, but the valves were on the tighter side so I adjusted them to the looser end of the spec. I also unscrewed two of the camshaft cap bolts that hold the chain guide a wee bit to see if that gave the chain any light play, which it didn't. Got everything torqued back to spec, and buttoned the thing back up. Runs great.
When I first opened it up, there was some red compound on the valve adjuster screws/locknuts, I'd guess loctite but it broke rather easily if it was loctite red; and undoing the chain guide bolts did require "cracking" it with a little bit of effort. Only thoughts I could find about using threadlocker before reassembling was some folks on the EX500 forum saying they don't generally do it on anything in the engine, but I've seen horror stories on this forum about the adjuster locknuts falling off and making things go pear-shaped. So my question: ya'll use threadlocker on the adjuster nuts/camshaft cap bolts/upper chain guide bolts? I plan on putting a few easy miles on it and then reopening to check if anything is backing off, but if this is a rookie mistake I'd rather know now.
Cheers for any guidance.
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Post by bikeman on Apr 29, 2021 16:06:17 GMT -6
hi. sorry for the late reply. not been on the forum much due ill heath. I just pop on now and again.
I will try and keep this short. first it is doubtful you have caused any issues. in fact you should check/adjust the valve clearances every 7000miles the exhaust valves in particular tend to close up and this can lead to the valves burning out if left for a long time.
thread locker yes every time but there is a reason for it. and sound engineering behind it. it is not really a case of do it or the nuts unscrew, that hardly ever happens just make sure the nuts are tightened correctly. no the reason for it it two fold one is to see if the nuts have moved since you last looked. and two to mark which valves you have set already if you leave the job and come back to it.
when you open up there may be red/blue/green/white dots on the end of the adjuster. first scrub this off with a soft wire brush to clean them so the nuts unscrew. then adjust each set of valves (there in pairs) tighten the nuts when adjustments are right and drop a dot of thread locker on the edge of the nut and protruding threads. this marks the valves you have done and makes sure the nut stays in place.
next time you open up in 7k you will see if any have moved. so then just repeat the process.
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Post by bayrider on May 1, 2021 11:44:43 GMT -6
Thanks for the reply bikeman, that makes me feel a lot better about it. I'll put a few more miles on it, and then pop it open to check that the torques/clearances are ok and then apply the threadlock as a marker. That's smart stuff.
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Post by bayrider on Jun 14, 2021 17:29:37 GMT -6
Follow-up for anyone reading in the future: I opened it back up the following week and the valves were fine: still gapped, and the torque on the locknut was right. But the "cracking" I referred to when undoing the camshaft cap bolts was actually my stripping some threads in the head. That's a whole nother can of worms, and another thread.
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