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The dreaded valve adjustment


lazyeye

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1 hour ago, burnes45 said:

 

 

6th. Bottom line!  Unless you can do the work yourself or have somebody you know and trust to work on it for you,  Just ride it till the wheels fall off which will be a lot longer than the average  person will keep and ride any motorcycle and save the money from that valve adjustment for new tires and chain and sprockets.       

 

 

👍   Well said!!

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You probably don't have to change the oil either.  Just add some if it gets low.  I knew a guy, his father would buy a car and keep it for 3 years, then trade it in on a new one.  He never did any maintenance.  Didn't change the oil, did nothing.  Car ran good.  I would hate to buy a used car and end up with his.

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2 hours ago, FastM said:

You probably don't have to change the oil either.  Just add some if it gets low.  I knew a guy, his father would buy a car and keep it for 3 years, then trade it in on a new one.  He never did any maintenance.  Didn't change the oil, did nothing.  Car ran good.  I would hate to buy a used car and end up with his.

Nope, don't have to adjust your chain, don't have to replace your tires, don't have to replace your brake pads... but we're not really talking about the same things.

 

Let me just take a few more whacks at this thing...

:beatdeadhorse:

 

There are some people who blindly follow the rules no matter what. In their mind, it's easier just to follow the rules. In general you are going to be just fine doing this. Your insurance agent loves you.

 

There are some people who tend to ignore any rules they don't feel like following. In general, if you go through life this way, you are sometimes going to have to deal with consequences. Good luck and be sure to keep bail money on hand.

 

The rest of us fall somewhere in between... we weigh our options. The key thing to understand here is that if you do misjudge a situation, you only have yourself to blame. Some guy on an internet forum (me included) isn't going to replace your engine for you just because you took his advice and it didn't work out.

 

I've got a pretty good idea of the amount of work involved in a valve adjustment on a VFR. I also have a rough idea of what it would cost, were I willing to find a dealer I trust to do the service (which I have written off as impossible). I also think I understand the consequences of ignoring the recommended schedule.

 

I'm comfortable that I understand the key factors here. The purpose of this thread is that the OP is trying to understand these factors for himself and make an informed decision and I hope this has been at least a little helpful in that regard. 

 

So... what brand of oil do y'all use? :goofy:

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No way I'm letting someone else wrench on my bike.  No way I'm deviating from the maintenance schedules per Honda.  I paid, in part, for that engineered maintenance schedule created by Honda.  If I have to spend $$$ for a tool or tools that I don't have and will only use once, so be it. That's the price for peace of mind.

 

I look at something like adjusting the valves as curriculum for a technical collage course (university of Hard Knocks, you know) and treat as such with research.  I'm better afterwards on several accounts, including keeping my mind as fresh as possible for a 61 year old processor.  The worst case scenario is that the valves, not a single one, needed adjustment, and I spent some money that I didn't need to spend, but what an education and experience!  

 

I guess that it comes down to pride of ownership and acceptance of a pleasant (to me) challenge.  

 

That is all.  Semper Fi

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I asked a shop about my valve on the 01 and they said they couldn’t do it because it required specialized tooling.

At least they were honest about not wanting to do it.

But I like the advice given here. 3 Beers for you guys.


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No special tools required on 98-01 models, only the Vtec's, in fact 5th gen is probably the easiest bike I ever had to do valave adjustments on with shim under bucket valve actuators.

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Weird, I’ve had to adjust my valves on my stock VFR400R, buddies ‘99 VFR800, and plan to check my ‘01 next winter. All of them had well under 30k on them. Even my ZRX1100 needed three shims changed out at 28k miles. No two bikes are the same and no cylinder shares the same conditions. Things will expand differently. Your valve clearance matters and is part of regular maintenance for a reason. If you can’t manage to either do them yourself, have a friend help, or find a reputable independent shop you’re a fairly sorry excuse for a motorcyclist.


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This is as entertaining as an oil thread, LOL!.  Bottom line:  people are going to do what they want to do which makes them all right.  It's their bike and why anyone else cares about someone else's bike is strange.  Some people are compliant to anything written and some people think for themselves.  

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Some people fundamentally believe, to be an adept motorcyclist, you must master both the aspects of riding (vehicle control), and the ability to maintain your own equipment. After all, you’re the only one that’s responsible for your and your equipment’s safety.

 

If you lack the abilities to control your motorcycle in all aspects of riding, or maintain it (or the ability to pay for it to be maintained), you’re now putting others at risk. Grow up and own it.

 

 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, ScottieDucati said:

Some people fundamentally believe, to be an adept motorcyclist, you must master both the aspects of riding (vehicle control), and the ability to maintain your own equipment. After all, you’re the only one that’s responsible for your and your equipment’s safety.

 

If you lack the abilities to control your motorcycle in all aspects of riding, or maintain it (or the ability to pay for it to be maintained), you’re now putting others at risk. Grow up and own it.

 

 

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For sure, some people obviously believe that.  I don't want to put anyone at risk because I didn't do a valve adjustment.  I'll just skip it though based on 3 VFR's owned, maintained, ridden hard, with no valve adjustments and nobody killed or maimed because I didn't adjust valves after many tens of thousands of miles.  I must be lucky, LOL!  Point taken though.  I respect everyone's opinion on the subject because it's their machine.  

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The valve adjustment is probably only a risk to yourself getting stranded. But to consider a major maintenance item unnecessary is ridiculous. It’s more the philosophy at play and coming from a road racing background you literally are responsible for your and everyone else’s safety. From basic fastener securement to maintaining all systems to a high standard. Once you actually master your mechanical skills you see with your own eyes that yes they go out of spec and also what can happen if left alone. VFR800+ is slightly better than my NC30 engines that can strip the chrome from your rockers, hammer valve seats, guides and stems.. wreaking havoc on the top end.

No matter how well engineered these bikes are nothing is immune from poor maintenance, heat, and materials degradation through repeated stress.


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3 hours ago, ScottieDucati said:

The valve adjustment is probably only a risk to yourself getting stranded. But to consider a major maintenance item unnecessary is ridiculous. It’s more the philosophy at play and coming from a road racing background you literally are responsible for your and everyone else’s safety. From basic fastener securement to maintaining all systems to a high standard. Once you actually master your mechanical skills you see with your own eyes that yes they go out of spec and also what can happen if left alone. VFR800+ is slightly better than my NC30 engines that can strip the chrome from your rockers, hammer valve seats, guides and stems.. wreaking havoc on the top end.

No matter how well engineered these bikes are nothing is immune from poor maintenance, heat, and materials degradation through repeated stress.


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So, you feel you have mastered your mechanical skills? Are you a full time motorcycle mechanic?

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It's nice to see responses from people who are willing to do the work to keep their bikes properly maintained, these forum threads have a tendency to start off on a productive footing, but then... the weird phenomena that this particular forum suffers from asserts itself.  The discussion is quickly highjacked and diverted away from a productive question-and-answer session about maintenance into a (rather ego-charged) debate about how smart it is to refuse to simply refuse to do the maintenance.  

 

The weird VFRdiscussion.com phenomena goes like this: A forum member will post up a thread asking for advice on a maintenance-related question.  A couple of people will start off the dialog with responses that address the maintenance-related question.  At this point it would appear that normal progress towards a resolution is likely, but then one of the VFRdiscussion.com forum's "non-maintainers" will arrive on the scene to begin flexing his ego by making posts about how dumb it is to do maintenance on the bike.

 

I'm thinking we might need start up a special forum thread where these guys can air out their special opinion.  I'm going to suggest that we have a thread titled: "What did you not do to your VFR today?"  This would be a place where the non-maintainers could regularly post about the joy and wisdom of owning a non-maintained VFR.

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4 hours ago, ScottieDucati said:

Some people fundamentally believe, to be an adept motorcyclist, you must master both the aspects of riding (vehicle control), and the ability to maintain your own equipment. After all, you’re the only one that’s responsible for your and your equipment’s safety.

 

If you lack the abilities to control your motorcycle in all aspects of riding, or maintain it (or the ability to pay for it to be maintained), you’re now putting others at risk. Grow up and own it.

 

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, ScottieDucati said:

Weird, I’ve had to adjust my valves on my stock VFR400R, buddies ‘99 VFR800, and plan to check my ‘01 next winter. All of them had well under 30k on them. Even my ZRX1100 needed three shims changed out at 28k miles. No two bikes are the same and no cylinder shares the same conditions. Things will expand differently. Your valve clearance matters and is part of regular maintenance for a reason. If you can’t manage to either do them yourself, have a friend help, or find a reputable independent shop you’re a fairly sorry excuse for a motorcyclist.


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It's funny how much self-righteous condescension some people can drum up over issues like this. I'm all in favor of taking someone to task for running with bald, checked tires, or worn out brakes. With this though, I'm hard pressed to come up with a scenario that ends in an injury because valve clearance went out of spec! If it goes as far as getting stranded you've not only ignored the recommended intervals, you've been ignoring the symptoms because I'm fully confident that the engine will start to behave differently long before failure.

 

I get where you are coming from with the whole "philosophy" angle... but to act like anyone who doesn't share your opinion is "a fairly sorry excuse for a motorcyclist" is counterproductive at best. You seem to have mistaken your bike for a high horse.

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44 minutes ago, Marvelicious said:

 

 

It's funny how much self-righteous condescension some people can drum up over issues like this. I'm all in favor of taking someone to task for running with bald, checked tires, or worn out brakes. With this though, I'm hard pressed to come up with a scenario that ends in an injury because valve clearance went out of spec! If it goes as far as getting stranded you've not only ignored the recommended intervals, you've been ignoring the symptoms because I'm fully confident that the engine will start to behave differently long before failure.

 

I get where you are coming from with the whole "philosophy" angle... but to act like anyone who doesn't share your opinion is "a fairly sorry excuse for a motorcyclist" is counterproductive at best. You seem to have mistaken your bike for a high horse.

This is a bit of a "cherry-picking" argument isn't it?

 

Because the point you seem to believe you're making does not take into account the whole of what has been going on in this forum thread, instead your argument draws its moral-high-ground judgment from a point of view that only refers to the last few (rightfully exasperated) comments made very late in a debate.  As I was just pointing out, the debate in this forum thread was not started by the "maintainers", instead, this debate was started by the "non-maintainers" jumping into maintenance-question-oriented forum threads with their anti-maintenance opinions.

 

It seems that there are some egos among us who appear to automatically take discussions of how to do maintenance as an affront to their (imagined) internet-forum-alpha-male status.  Isn't it a bit weird (psychologically) to feel it necessary to regularly intrude into discussions of motorcycle maintenance with your opinion that the maintenance shouldn't be done at all because (in your opinion) it's unnecessary?

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I offered the option to have it done for you, but either way maintaining a vehicle is a responsibility. I’m fairly sure I’d be on solid legal ground in terms of liability as well if you want to split hairs. No you don’t need to do it all yourself. Yes you absolutely need to maintain your equipment. Do valve adjustments really amount to a safety issue? Well maybe not but I’ve seen some carnage as a result of engine failure. Simply not doing it because it’s hard or expensive is irresponsible and honestly it’s just sad the lack of knowledge or respect for what mechanical maintenance means.

 

Personally I paid to maintain my race bikes and learned to do it myself when inevitably I ran out of funds. If I couldn’t pay, or couldn’t fix it myself, I wouldn’t play. Yes my background was solidly in a racing environment for many years and I’m glad it was. Many lessons learned the hard way where the consequence was failing tech, or breaking equipment or breaking myself.

 

Motorcyclists take their own lives into their hands every time we ride. Show some respect for yourself and others by learning how and when to maintain your bike. It’s almost as if the Owners Manual for every bike ever made tells you everything you need to know about maintenance for a reason.

 

 

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So, you feel you have mastered your mechanical skills? Are you a full time motorcycle mechanic?


If any mechanic tells you they’ve learned everything they can they’re not worth paying. I’m always learning, started learning how to check valves about a decade ago. By now I’m comfortable doing top ends and basic timing. Working on bottom end stuff now. Every time is a learning opportunity and more should view maintenance as valuable lessons to be learned.


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5 minutes ago, ScottieDucati said:

I offered the option to have it done for you, but either way maintaining a vehicle is a responsibility. I’m fairly sure I’d be on solid legal ground in terms of liability as well if you want to split hairs. No you don’t need to do it all yourself. Yes you absolutely need to maintain your equipment. Do valve adjustments really amount to a safety issue? Well maybe not but I’ve seen some carnage as a result of engine failure. Simply not doing it because it’s hard or expensive is irresponsible and honestly it’s just sad the lack of knowledge or respect for what mechanical maintenance means.


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...and yet this thread was started by a guy who specifically stated that he had no faith in local shops. Since this is an internet discussion, I think we can probably leave the lawyers at home.

6 minutes ago, GreginDenver said:

This is a bit of a "cherry-picking" argument isn't it?

 

Because the point you seem to believe you're making does not take into account the whole of what has been going on in this forum thread, instead your argument draws its moral-high-ground judgment from a point of view that only refers to the last few (rightfully exasperated) comments made very late in a debate.  As I was just pointing out, this is a debate that was not started by the "maintainers", instead, this debate was started by the "non-maintainers" jumping into maintenance-question-oriented forum threads with their anti-maintenance opinions.

 

It seems that there are some egos among us who automatically take discussions of how to do maintenance as an affront to their alpha-male status.  Isn't it a bit weird (psychologically) to feel it necessary to regularly intrude into discussions of motorcycle maintenance with your opinion that the maintenance shouldn't be done?

Certainly no ego on display there... I think you're projecting a bit. Am I cherry picking... well I missed a few. For example, your post early on was pretty condescending in its own right.

 

So it is your opinion that any advice that deviates in any way from factory recommended practice is "anti-maintenance" and should be relegated to some hidden backwater of the forum? Why even have a forum if not for discussion (preferably civil)? We can just post the factory service manual and move on.

 

Either way, I guess I've said my piece and this argument isn't headed anywhere useful, so this will be my last post in this thread.

 

The last word is yours if you need it.

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I guess I’d rather a tinge of condescension than propagating the idea maintenance can simply be ignored. Apologies for the tone. I really do believe ensuring your bike is safe and maintained is 100% an issue of personal responsibility.

 

Then again I almost got killed when a buddy failed to notice his car’s tires were utterly bald. In a state that doesn’t require inspections no less.

 

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3 minutes ago, Marvelicious said:

...and yet this thread was started by a guy who specifically stated that he had no faith in local shops. Since this is an internet discussion, I think we can probably leave the lawyers at home.

Certainly no ego on display there... I think you're projecting a bit. Am I cherry picking... well I missed a few. For example, your post early on was pretty condescending in its own right.

 

So it is your opinion that any advice that deviates in any way from factory recommended practice is "anti-maintenance" and should be relegated to some hidden backwater of the forum? Why even have a forum if not for discussion (preferably civil)? We can just post the factory service manual and move on.

 

Owning a motorcycle is a lot like raising a child because, as the child's parent, you're pretty free to do as good or bad a job of raising them as you want.

 

But if you've chosen to do a really lousy job raising your child it's a bit out of line to get all offended when people don't react well.

 

Yeah, having to depend on dealership maintenance is an absolutely horrifying proposition.  It's a real "gotcha" situation when you really, really, really love machinery like motorcycles but you don't have the wrench-skills (or is it skilz?) to do your own maintenance.

 

My advice to the Original Poster on finding an alternative to Dealership Maintenance would be to do things like: Join group rides in his area and maybe go to Cars-n-Coffee type events because that's where you meet people (specifically, it's where you meet and make friends with machinery-loving people who do their own maintenance who might be willing take on your bike's maintenance).

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Are there no solid DIY threads or videos on YouTube? I had no clue what I was getting into doing timing chain guides on my car, the internet has everything you need but specialty tools!


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Any other questions you would like answered Lazyeye🤣

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16 minutes ago, Philois1984 said:

Any other questions you would like answered Lazyeye🤣

Surely we can advise Lazeye on the correct oil to use........ NO NO Sorry I'm only joking.

But seriously Lazyeye, there is enough info on this thread to make your own very informed personnel decision based on a hell of a lot of EXPERIENCE presented as to wether to valve check or not, bearing in mind, you are talking about a modern 8gen not a 20 year old machine. Enjoy your 8gen they are a fantastic bike.

Cheers.

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Owned a 2011 6th gen, never had a problem and the bike run strong until the day I trade it for my 2018 8th gen. Never had the valves checked with 35000km...

Had a 93 Civic VTi 1.6cc 160hp, raced the car over 8 years and with 200000km I get the valves checked and my mechanic said they were all within the specs... and that car made 8500rpm!

 

Just ride it like its supposed to ride and have fun! Motorcycles and cars do have more problems when they don´t get driven or riden often...

 

Cheers

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Wow!  This place is going the route of the VFR World Forum.  That place can get downright nasty.  VFRD used to be a pretty civil and appropriately moderated place.  It's been apparent for a long time that it's being allowed to die out over time.    

 

I think I'll take the route of not doing valve checks based on mine and other's experience of no bad consequences and no experience or knowledge of anyone being killed or maimed due to VFR's with valves being out of spec. (seriously....really?!)  I'll also not do it because it's my motorcycle and I can maintain it any way I want.  The moral authority here is getting a little over-bearing....and entertaining, LOL!  

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