Rocker Arms/valve adjustment - Revealing my frustration, ignorance and revelations & trusting you will not judge

Thu Jul 22 11:56:58 EDT 2021

Disclaimer: The following may make you laugh or shake your head or simply fill up your time…

Thanks to all your help, I have “done it”;  adjusted valve clearances on my 1984 R65LS.

Most of my confusion resolved while hands-on actually following and applying the guiding instruction but I will note that the greatest issue I had/have is lack of confidence; not lack of ability.  Plus, I am neurotic!

Aiming to be a perfectionists (What the hell? I thought I gave that up a long time ago!), I strive for “exact” measurements, instruction following, etc.  Clearly, sometimes the obvious is not so when hypervigilant.

Well, in addition to my lack of experience and lack comfort from repetition, is my discovery of conflicting information that bumps my confusion and second guessing to the next level of anxiety.

For instance:

1.	Attempting to Identify the compression (closed) stroke/cylinder while watching and waiting for valves to open and close on either cylinder while “bumping/turning” rear wheel and peering into small diameter hole looking for OT mark was a challenge for me and gave me the initial angst.

            What I found as my most helpful (ah ha!) in all that I read and subsequently experienced was simply that when OT was viewed through the window, the head with rotatable push rods is the on the compression stroke! Easy peasy as long as the push rods are not bent or otherwise resistant.

            Also, after adjusting the left cylinder valve clearances, I simply used the tire stem as my guide to rotating the rear wheel 360 deg and in quick order, found OT and confirmed the right cylinder was in compression stroke by the ease of which I could turn the push rods.

2.	Feeler Gauges with Go-No-Go are cool.  However when one has not used feelers with a range of measurement (not just singular metric and inch measurement stamps) and nothing tells you that the initial insertion is the first number in the range and the step up in size is the end range; what should be obvious and logical isn’t always to the conscientious mind. (that clearly over thinks things! Guilty!)

3.	Add further confusion to this already confused girl New-to-valve adjusting person – trying to make sense of advice to set intake clearance to .10 and exhaust clearance to .20 or in the same instruction, written otherwise as .006” intake and .010” exhaust or even “intake 6mm” and “exhaust 8mm”.  Oh boy.

And Then more uncertainty abounds by checking the R65LS manual which says after first 600 miles the valve clearances are:  “Inlet: 0.05 mm (0.002 in) Outlet 0.20 mm (0.008 in). 

Info on measurements are close but varied enough that when you don’t know how much the small differences matter, it dwindles confidence and or delays completion. (add the mystique of German perfection and runs like a Swiss clock vs it’s all an illusion … sorry, don’t mind me…that’s subject for another discussion :) )

And so, I made my best first attempt at adjusting my airhead valves whereas the best part isn’t just that I have the satisfaction of having done it, but that I have a better understanding of how & why to do it and am not so reluctant in re-doing or re-checking next time.

For those who might be wondering – No, I did not loosen and retorque the rocker shaft end play nuts.  I’m leaving them well enough alone. The nuts are tight with no excessive or up & down movement in the rockers.

Now, before you conclude that I’ve got too much time on my hands for too much thinking, I’ll tell you that I did all that between 10-12 pm last night after a full day’s work.  Some would call that passion.

Geez – shut up already Susan!

Have a great day you all.

From: Susan.Quitzau <susan.quitzau at gmail.com> 
Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2021 10:41 AM
To: paairheads at casano.com
Subject: Rocker Arms/valve adjustment - (This is a long one, pull up a chair)

Hello new friends & Airhead Brethren, (if I may be so bold)…

Ride On Baby Ride On!

TIA!

Susan from NJ 

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