Did the first valve tappet adjustment today. I'm not too proud to say there are some problems. everything's pretty cool until trying to remove the valve cover. ... There is no room to slide the cover off. Going to the left is somewhat less painful. If you can do it without scratches/minor damage to the cover my hats off. I scratched the top, and did nick an area of the inner groove for the gasket. That brings us to that evil rubber gasket. I would say poor design. You can go nuts trying to get it to stay put during assembly. I tried every approach, and the "grease " trick, no luck. I finally smeared permatec blue gasket maker( what I had ) to hold the gasket on the headcover while carefully squeezing it from the left into position. That was the only way possible that I could determine. I reviewed all the videos, Stuart Fillingham , etc. If there is a trick to make head cover/gasket installation easier, Get it before doing the service. All said, the job is done, no leaks, and no visible scratches( very minor one on the cover hidden by the tank).
Glad you got it done and sorry it was so frustrating. But at least you still have that half-a-grand in your account.
I watched those same videos before I did mine, too. One thing that I noticed was that they were all doing it for the first time themselves. No black-belt valve adjusters in the batch that I watched. They all struggled with the valve cover and some fast forwarded the tape.
So having only done it once _ it wasn't so bad. Here is what I learned;
You really do have to remove the horns.
You really do have to unbolt the CPU tray. I used some just right wooden blocks to raise and hold it out of the way (no hands).
For me, the path to remove the cover was to "roll" it forward and down towards the front wheel.
Then slide it left to right out to the throttle side.
Do it slowly. I did drape a shop towel over the top of it, but it never touched.
Obviously, it goes back on in reverse. Slide back via the front of the engine from right to left. And "arc" it back up and over.
AS for that gasket. Before I even tried _ I practiced mounting the cover once without it. That way I wasn't doing two things at once for the first time. I just used motor oil to hold it in place. But with the cover laying cavity side up, I used my finger to push it down all the way around in order to remove any air. That helps with "stick-tion".
Putting it on I reached my left arm under the backbone and held that half-round rubber plug with my ring finger. I used my right hand index finger and pinky to hold the corners of the gasket in place. My two thumbs held the shop rag across the top. I did loose a small section of the gasket (center/rear). I had kept my feeler gauges out and used a mid size to slide under the cover (barley lifting it at all) and put the gasket back into the grove.
So that was a little long winded, but I hope it can lower the frustration and hesitance.
Topic: Tappet adjustment and that evil rubber gasket (Read 6927 times)