What a difference...

[William K Denton]

Hi John,

Sounds like just a valve adjustment (valve lash).  A true "valve job" 
requires removal of the cylinder head and a heck of a lot more than 4 hrs 
labor.

On a 4,000 mile used bike, the statement that "the valves were just 
maintained" leaves a lot of room for interpretation.  On one hand, it could 
mean that the 10,000km (6250mile) valve adjustment was done early, and 
recently, at 4k miles.  My experience tells me that this is unlikely.  No 
one does (expensive) maintenance early, especially if they are selling 
something.

On the other hand, "just maintained" could truly mean nothing more than the 
fact that all "scheduled maintenance" was up to date.  In the case of a used 
bike w/ 4,000 miles, this would mean that the valves were adjusted at the 
800km (500mile) interval, but had not yet been adjusted at the 10,000km 
(6250mile) interval, since the bike did not have that many miles on it yet. 
If this were the case, your 18,000 mile valve adjustment would have been 
almost 3 full intervals overdue (6250, 12,500, 18750).  If that's the case, 
its no wonder that the mechanic said that your values were way off. 
Frankly, you're lucky that you didn't burn any valves.

Just out of curiosity, did they record the before and after clearance values 
and give them to you with the bill?  They should have.  Also, how many shims 
did they charge you for and did they give you back the used ones that were 
no longer in use?

Bill in Yardley, PA
wkdenton at verizon.net
PAMSP RiderCoach

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "john leonard" <jlmdx at hotmail.com>



Hello Bill,

I don't know exactly what they did with the values but they billed me 4 
hours for the values and 30 minutes for the carbs.

The bike has only 18K on it.  I purchased it with 4K, and at that time they 
told me the valves were just maintained.