Sorry, wound up in Monza...

No, really... I wound up in Italy. Left last Saturday, back Wednesday night and went in to the office Thursday morning. That meant the weeknights before my flight out were occupied with finding some carry on luggage, loading my iPod with a decent English-Italian translator and packing. Oh, I really did make it to Monza, but didn't see the track. Had a great dinner, that ended at 10:00... man they eat late, but dining is serious business there and with food that good, they can eat whenever they damn well please. Will try to check out the track next time along with the MV Agusta factory which is also in the area. That jaunt put me way behind in my valve adjust story so let's get to it.

When we last left, I finally got the horizontal exhaust closer off. Now that both shims from that valve are off, I need to measure them to know which size to pull out of my shim kit to give me the desired gap. The gaps I were shooting for were as follows:

Ex. Closer 0.o5 - 0.10 mm
All others 0.10 - 0.15 mm

My original closer gap on this valve measured 0.01 mm. The original closer shim was 2.967 mm, call it 2.97. I need to shrink the shim between 0.04 and 0.09 mm, so I need a new shim between 2.88 and 2.93 mm. The shims come in 0.05 mm increments, so I grabbed the 2.90 mm closer. You need a micrometer and a closer shim measuring tool (upper left "tophat" looking thing in the photo on the right) to measure these puppies. The tool fits inside closer shim, so it makes a shim sandwich. Measure the total thickness of the combined stack, then subtract 10mm to get the shim thickness. BTW, my mic measures in inches. The conversion for mm to inches is 25.4mm = 1". Good thing I paid attention that day in scientist school. I should just get a metric mic. Oh, no, I didn't have to look up the conversion. It was a minor victory that day. Can't remember Boltzmann's constant to save my life though. Good thing we're not doing 1/kT type calcs today.

The opener shim on the horizontal exhaust valve measured 2.997... call it 3.00 mm. My measured gap was 0.06mm so I need to shrink the shim by .04 to .09. New shim should be between 2.91 and 2.96 mm. I grabbed the 2.95 mm out of the box, measured it to double check and it was spot on. Let's go put these shims on the exhaust valve then move to the intake valves.

OK, here's where I considered I was not cut out for this wrenchin' stuff. Guess what kids? I got the keeper stuck again, halfway on. There she is, stuck at the top between the valve stem and closer shim. It was stuck good too. Two things were causing the problem. First off, my rocker depressor tool really wasn't that good - pipe tamper on a the end of a pocket knife. I couldn't get good purchase on the rocker arm to get a firm push. Secondly, my electrical tape wrapped hemostats couldn't grip the valve stem well enough to keep it fully "out". Those two added up to insufficient clearance of the closer shim; I couldn't get it pushed down far enough past the groove in valve stem to get the keepers positively in the groove. Time to consult the Oracles at Yahoo and here's what they had to say.


A,B,C) Pull rad, get to TDC, pull hor belt, pull oil input cap, pull rocker arm, get to the shims. Thanks Bill for validating where I'm at is the way to go. I need all the reassurance I can get.
1) Ditch the electrical tape. Great tip came in to use the plastic dip for tool handles. Cover the hemostat tips in that goop. Thanks Jack.
2) Bend the tips of the hemos at an appropriate angle so you can get it down in there. Use a propane or gas torch to heat the jaws so you can bend them in a half circle and angle them. I used a mini butane torch, bench vise and pliers. Worked great. Thanks Jack, again.
3) Get the official depressor tool or notch a screwdriver. I didn't want to wait for another shipment of goodies, so I notched a screwdriver blade AND dipped it in plasti-dip. Also tried a dipped nut driver, but didn't work as well as the notched screwdriver. Thanks Jack, thrice.
4) File the end of a popsicle stick half round, use a dab of grease and voila... keeper holder. Thanks Nick.
5) Put the keepers in the same way they came out. If you flip 'em over, things tighten up. Thanks double, Nick, and QW.

With the tips from the group, everything went off without a hitch. Well, as far as
loading the closer shims went. The pic to the left shows a keeper loaded on the popsicle stick holder, rocker arm being depressed by my notched screwdriver and the valve stem being held in place by the plati-dipped hemos. This is the horizontal left intake valve. I was depressing the rocker, and after this shot, I pushed the closer shim (shown) down past the groove. My wife slid the keeper in the groove. Closer shims might be doable with 1 person, but I didn't try.

Well, I got the shims loaded on the exhaust valve and moved to the intake. Guess what, the intake valve was so much easier. The closer spring doesn't seem to be as strong and it was no sweat to depress the rocker arm well past the valve stem groove and pull the keepers and closer shim. Putting the new closer back on was also a snap. With that, I was done with the shims on the horizontal cylinder. I put the rockers, rocker pins and clips back on and verified my gaps. Ex closer was between .05 and .10 mm and the openers and intake closer were between .10 and .15 mm. At this point, I make sure the horizontal cam belt pulley was lined up with the timing mark and put the old belt back on. I then spin the motor a few times and get it back to TDC-comp, then measure the horizontal gaps again. Guess what? They're tighter than when I started!!!! Even the right intake, which I didn't even touch. Grrrrrr.

Now I'm used to this, so I'm only mildly peeved. I looked at it this way, I put in smaller shims all the way round and there was one valve I didn't touch at all. It had to be a measurement error or something similarly goofy. Instead of dwelling on it, I decided I'd go check the vertical cylinder and after I got that sorted, I'd come back to the horizontal. Next installment will be the vert cyl story and what I found out about the horizontal. Later kids....