I just got a 2004 gs500f a few hundred miles ago and decided it'd be good to check the valve clearances. After checking my valve clearances, I found that my right exhaust valve had under 0.02 mm clearance. I didn't have a smaller shim to replace it with, so I just put everything back together. I took the bike for a spin but noticed a ticking noise coming from the right side of the engine. I'm not positive that noise wasn't there to begin with, but it's presence now worries me.
I noticed in Kerry's valve clearance video, he rotated the engine a few times after installing the new shim to squeeze out any oil between the shim and the bucket. I didn't do that. Could that be causing the noise? Does the gs500 just have a ticking noise that I didn't notice until now?
Not spinning the engine a few times wouldn't cause the noise. The only reason he does that is to squeeze all of the oil out so when you double check the clearance it's not measuring thinner than it actually is due to there being oil behind the shim. As soon as you started your engine it would've pushed it down into place.
any chance you left something under the engine cover before you bolted it down?? if all you did was lift the cover, measure the gap and bolt the cover back on, I have no idea what would've changed to make noise. Does it sound like a bad noise, or just a noise? I'd try putting a thinner shim in there and see if it still does it.
I didn't leave anything in the engine before closing it up. The tick is very regular. I've seen other people reporting the same problem and they say it could be due to a faulty valve bucket and that it's not an issue. I'll report back once I install the thinner shims.
Another question, if I don't know the clearance of the valves, would it be smarter to buy multiple thinner shims or just assume that moving down from a 268 to a 260 will do it?
How many miles are on your bike? I'm interested in how many miles it took for the valves to get to .02mm.
My bike has made a ticking noise at regular intervals since I bought it. Not constant but it consistently returns. I've checked the valves and they are OK...plugs look fine...doesn't burn oil...etc. I used to worry about it but last year started ignoring it. I realize this is not a fundamentally sound maintenance decision but everything else looks OK and the bike runs fine.
A sticking bucket will cause a tick. So will excessive valve clearance which "should" not happen under "normal" circumstances as clearance decreases with wear. Since you rode the bike a few hundred miles how do you not know if it was ticking before? Could it be you need to adjust the cam chain tensioner and the noise is fooling you? To answer your last question, my GS has 26,000 miles on it, the valves don't tick, and our bike is not known for noisy valves. There is one other thing. Some of our bikes (older models, not yours) had a harmless problem where the cams can move side-to-side slightly after warm-up as clearance develops, causing a knocking sound which was addressed a few years into the production run.
Valve shims is one of the few things I don't like about our bike. Yamaha and Suzuki love them for some reason. I wish it had screw-type valve adjusters like many Kawasakis.
How many miles are on the bike? Most 2004 GS's don't have more than 10k miles. If that's the case I suspect your bike was ridden hard and put away wet by the previous owner.
Quote from: chilloutdamnit on March 05, 2011, 11:00:25 PM
Another question, if I don't know the clearance of the valves, would it be smarter to buy multiple thinner shims or just assume that moving down from a 268 to a 260 will do it?
I'm not sure about the clearance of mine either. The thinnest feeler gauge I have is either .03 or .04 and the gap is smaller than that. The buckets still spin easily so I know there still has to be some kind of a gap anywhere from .001mm to .03mm. The shims come in increments of 5, so you might do better with a 265 but it's hard to say. If it's not completely out of the way to get to a dealership it might be easiest to buy a shim around 245-250, put it in, then remeasure with the new gap. If they're a nice dealership they might even just trade you that one for another size you need.
The bike has just under 16k miles. Thanks for all the tips guys. I was riding the bike hard when I noticed the noise. I'll check out the cam chain adjuster. Thanks for all the tips guys :D
It took about 4000 street miles for my GS500 to go under the minimum specified clearance for the exhaust valves. On these motors, I strongly recommend running .08mm-.12mm exhaust valve clearance (after a race season, running these clearances has caused me no issues.)
I didn't realize that the engine was capable of *not* ticking while running. In fact, I associate silence with a head full of tight valves.
I assume this is a new noise? Didn't happen to joggle the exhaust while you were in there?
I had almost the same thing:
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=53228
Quote from: noiseguy on March 06, 2011, 06:34:53 PM
I didn't realize that the engine was capable of *not* ticking while running. In fact, I associate silence with a head full of tight valves.
I assume this is a new noise? Didn't happen to joggle the exhaust while you were in there?
Noiseguy - appropriate name I guess in this context - is correct. Tight valves - or atleast under the 1.5 thou feeler guage size clearance = silent motor.
You cannot pull the shims out and put em back in and measure the clearance. They do a thing called oil float. You need to turn it over a few times atleast, but sometimes you need to get the motor run a few mins.
Cool.
Buddha.
Chill, when I shimmed my 500, I had to fidgit some to get one of the shims to settle into its seat fully. It was like the shim was just a bit too large to really fit, but eventually it did settle into its "nest". But, if it had not, the effect might have been as if I had a shim way too thick and prolly a good bit of noise. Not sure. I agree with others that a slightly loose cam to bucket fit is a happy fit.
prs