Help please, engine knock/tick --- new to gs world

[lee]

I have had my gs for 3 months and it has had an annoying knock/taping sound that seems to be getting progressively worse.  I used to be a diesel mechanic and immediatly thought valve adjustment and took it to the dealer and sure enough they wanted $300 bucks to do a valve adj. So i figured i could do it myself.  I read up on how to do it, pulled it apart and all valve clearances are below .08mm (thats the lowest my set goes till tomorrow hopefully). but the thing that has me stumped is the camshaft that is over the exaust valves has the gear that runs the chain attached to it  AND THE GEAR IS LOOSE ON THE SHAFT!! Does anyone have any experience with this or am i the first, it has the locking plate so i do not know how it got loose, or could it still be in the valve adj making that awful annoying knock/tap.
(oh yea the dealer told me it wasnt the "camshaft walking" that there was a recall on because it still made the noise when tilted to its left side)

Any help will be apreciated, i leave for the sandbox soon and want to ride as much as possible before then!!

[yamahonkawazuki]

are th bolts that attach teh gear loose as well? or missing 

[Big Lou]

just got back from the box in march, good luck bro.

[gsJack]

A noisy tappet is a high frequency light tapping or ticking type noise while the "camshaft walking" noise is a low frequency deep thud type noise heard only at idle on a warm engine and goes away when the engine is speeded up to a fast idle and is harmless.

If a .08 mm feeler is a no go on all the valve clearances and you can turn all the buckets with your finger tip with the cam lobe turned away from the shim indicating some clearance you are good to go for now as far as valve adjustment goes.

That chain sprocket should not be loose on the camshaft, the 2 bolts holding it on should be torqued down to 13-14 ft lbs and the tabs on the locking plate should be bent over to keep them tight.  Don't see how these could come loose if they were properly installed at the factory and no reason to take them loose unless replacing a sprocket.  This needs to be sorted out and fixed if the sprocket is really loose on the shaft.

Was this a new bike 3 months ago, you don't say what model year it is?  If bought used a previous owner could have left the sprocket loose or not locked the tabs properly.

[Cal Price]

Yup, echo everything gsJack says - I guess we mast be talking about a used bike otherwise you would be inserting it into the dealers rear end?

[lee]

Sorry the bike is a 05 and the previous owner is not a person to do anything himself.  It goes to the dealer for everything.  Yes the bolts attaching the sprocket on are loose and the locking plate is locked and only has one bend so it had to be from the factory.  the prior owner told me that is how the bike sounded ever since he had it.  It has like 1/16" or maybe a bit more (i didnt really measure) of play on the gear, is that something I can just tighten and press on or do i need to spend the money on a new one?  Could this even be what makes the sound.  Oh yea the bike only has 2500 miles on it(1100mi by me)

[The Buddha]

Loose cam sproket = bad, absolutely horrible. How did it happen - easy, it was assembled by a mechanic friday evening and he was waiting to get his weekend cocaine and hooker party started, He put the head on and put the cam shafts on and the chain on and the sprokets on all the while looking at the clock, and bingo it was 5 o'clock. He runs off on his weekend bender with aforementioned hookers and cocaine, and that takes him all the way to 9am monday. Where he comes in to work thinking how good the cocaine and the hooker was, and slaps on the valve cover and sends it to the next guy.
Valves being loose and cam shaft side play make a noise too, but cam shaft noise usually wont go on the side stand, you catch the cam shaft at the sproket usually and vigorously move from side to side ... over .5mm of side movement it will make a noise for sure. Under .25 mm is good. measure with feeler guage on the end by the cam tower.
Vlave clearance even under the 1.5 thousandths of an inch level, it will be quite audible. But it dont hurt anything.
Cool.
Buddha.

[gsJack]

I believe it could come from the factory that way, my 02 GS came with a tight bucket on one exhaust valve and it stuck open one freezing cold morning and broke the valve.  Must have been fit too tight in the head at factory, I had to drive it out from the inside when I pulled the head for repair.  Have another 40k trouble free miles on it since repair and it never ran better.

I'd try to tighten those bolts down on your cam sprocket if it were mine.  Might be good idea to take them out one at a time to see if threads are good, replace bolts if necessary.  Check to make sure the sprocket bore still has a good fit on the camshaft shoulder.  Lock it up good when you done.

[lee]

Thanks guys, i will give that a shot when i get off work, and after i buy another set of feeler gauges that go that small.  I appreciate your help, oh yea, if the valve clearance wont fit a .08mm should i bother with the adjustment?  Thank you again.

[kml.krk]

Thanks guys, i will give that a shot when i get off work, and after i buy another set of feeler gauges that go that small.  I appreciate your help, oh yea, if the valve clearance wont fit a .08mm should i bother with the adjustment?  Thank you again.

valve clearance should be between 0.03 - 0.08 mm. any gap bigger that 0.08mm is not good, and any gap smaller that 0.03mm is not good. although some guys ride until they can spin the bucket with the finger.
anyways, proper action would be to adjust the shims if it's out of the proper range

good luck
Kamel

[lee]

thanks everyone for the help.  I got the feeler guages and my exaust was at .07mm and .076, I figure that is close enough to .08 so guess im going to change them.
Suzuki here doesnt carry them and told me at least 1 week- before they could have them in  but hell i guess i should wait, but i am ready to see if that damn ticking is gone.  Does anyone have the torque for the cam bolts?? Cant find it on the internet.  But thanks everyone who pitched in, will let you guys know how it turns out.

[gsJack]

I've found in putting 80k miles on a 97 GS and 60k miles on a 02 GS that the GS exhaust valves tend to recede into the seats as the milage increases requiring smaller shims to maintain clearace and that not letting the valve clearances get too tight helps to slow this process by allowing the exhaust valves more seat time for cooling.  Intake valve clearances change little if any over the life of the engine.  I ride them hard but don't abuse them.

If I had .07mm exhaust valve clearance I'd let it go without reducing it expecting it to decrease rather than to increase with further miles.  What clearance did you measure for the intakes?  My valve clearance and shim change records, I think and work in inches:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v443/jcp8832/valveclearances.jpg

Did the exhaust cam sprocket tighten up OK?

Camshaft bearing cap bolts should be 6-9 ft lbs.

[lee]

Thanks gsJack, i am just going to put it all back together, intakes are at .05 on the left and 4 on the right.  So if the exaust valves tighten up over time i shouldnt have problems, i thought they loosened up over time.?

[The Buddha]

My 89 always went loose from 8K to 48K. Riding style maybe ? - I did lots of medium sized runs as a commuter for me. Also most bikes (especially water cooled kawasaki's but suzuki's weren't that much better ) ... have intake valves sinking into the head. They are made of shittier material and they wear their edges into razor edge's ... exhaust valves run hotter and they know it, so they used better material. I can put up pics of the head off my eli, and a GS I pulled the head on.
Cool.
Buddha.

[gsJack]

I'd think maybe the oil used could have had more to do with the difference than riding style. 

The only way valve clearance can increase is by camshaft and/or shim wear and my intake valve clearances/shims remained unchanged for 80k miles on the 97 GS and 60k miles on the 02 GS.  I never replaced an intake shim on the 97 and while I changed one on the 02 at one valve check I then changed it back at the next valve check and all are now still original shims.

On the 97 GS the exhaust valve shim was changed only once on the #1 cyl while the shims were changed repeatedly on the #2 cyl to smaller shims as the valve receeded into the head.  It was down to the minimum 215 shim thickness by 76,800 miles.  You can see that the #2 exhaust valve ran at minimum clearance for about 20k miles before it started eating the valve and the shim changes started at approx 40k miles.

On the 02 GS after the broken valve repair around 21k miles a similar repeated shim change pattern started on the #1 cyl exhaust valve and I went to slightly larger than spec exhaust valve clearances and the valve recession has stabalized for the last 20k miles.  This works OK for me since I've kept my GSs strictly stock and rarely rev above 9k rpm, a little over the power peak.  If your redlining all day long it would be best to keep the clearances a bit tighter and not exceed the .001-.003"(.03-.08mm) spec.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v443/jcp8832/valveclearances.jpg

[lee]

okay on to a new problem, does anyone know where i can find one cam bolt,  when i took one out the threads looked streched in one spot and when i was torquing it to 6ft lbs and it snapped off. I got the bolt out but now i am short a bolt.  If anyone knows a good place to find one or has did this before some guidance would be nice.  I hope that ticking is gone after all this.  thanks for the help

[The Buddha]

GSJack - I ran my shims tight after I started doing them at ~20K. I bought it with ~8, had a friend do it at ~15K and I was constantly swapping shims since the 20K mark.
I also believe my wear was all in the cams and shims, in fact I always measured them and they always showed strange numbers, 263.5 or some like that down from a 265. I also had a scratch on one of my cams, and that scratch was nearly unchanged in the 40K I owned it. It got a wee bit fainter. Mine also had very little cam shaft side drift play till it got to 35K. It was not even audible, but at 35K thanks to this site I was able to measure it, and what do you know, I started hearing it by 40K.
I used synthetic 20W50 till ~30K, then went to dino 20W50, then to straight 40, then 50, then 60 wt. It was using oil at 300 mi per quart by the time I sold it. It was steadily increasing all along. Oh ... if it was getting past my guides, it will soak up the valve seats and prevent wear a little. Huh, maybe its not all bad that it was using oil.
Cool.
Buddha.

[gsJack]

6 ft lbs?  That bolt must have been ready to break.

In my first post above I mentioned those bolts holding the sprocket on the camshaft should be torqued to 13-14 ft lbs, according to Clymer manual:

Camshaft sprocket bolts......13-14 ft lbs

Later you asked for torque values of "cam bolts" and I thought you meant the ones holding the camshaft on the head since some here lift the cams to change shims and posted the Clymer spec:

Camshaft bearing cap bolts.......6-9 ft lbs

The 13-14 ft lb spec for the small 6 mm sprocket bolts indicate they must be heat treated alloy bolts equivelant to our grade 8 socket heads or better.  I'd feel better using the ones from Suzuki unless you can find a 6x12.5 mm hex head capscrew marked 10.9 or 12.9 at a large hardware store or local bolt and fastener supplier, etc.  Can you see the small grade number on the heads of your sprocket screws?

I don't have any extra bolts like those but maybe someone else here does. I'd get 2 and replace them both.

[gsJack]

Buddha, I remember your saying way back that you kept your GS valves on the tight side which is probably a good thing for max performance and min chance of throwing a shim but can be a bad thing for valve life promoting more recession into the seat from the lack of cooling time of the valve on the seat.

I ran 15W-50 Mobil 1 synthetic in my 97 GS for 50k miles and then went to the 15W-40 Delvac 1300 or Rotella T dino truck oils when it started burning oil.  Found it ran cooler with the 15-40 than it did with the 15-50 and have used only the 15-40 truck oils in the 02 GS.

My increased exhaust valve clearances of .004" and .005" seems to be increasing the exhaust valve life considerably.  Works for me but I don't recommend it for everyone, depends on riding style.  The GS500 spec of .001-.003" is the tightest I've seen for shim over bucket.  My old CB750 Honda valve clearance was .002-.005" with shim over bucket and it was redlined at 9500 rpm.  I'm using that on my GS not going tighter than .002" or looser than .005" and keeping it down to 9k rpm max.  No sense spinning it faster on a stock GS since the power curve drops off quickly after 8500 peak.

[lee]

Thanks gsjack for the torque specs.  That one must have been ready to go, and i thought the bolt looked funny when i took it out.   I found the bolts, I didnt want to take the chances of one breaking, so i got enough to change them all(hex 12.9) I couldnt find the right length but i can cut the ones down that i got. thanks