Valve clearances.

[Chris J Barrett]

If like me you do all your own mechanics, you will know how bloody irritating it is trying to bend your feeler guages down through the inspection covers and into the valve clearance gap. I'll give you a tip, take off the rocker covers. It's a lot easier & you can get you clearances bang on. The back one just lifts straight off but the front one you have to remove the coil & just raise the cover enough the get at the valves. Do not try and pull it clear or you will knacker the seal. This way doesn't take any longer and I find it a lot more accurate.

[xrv_jim]

Nice one!

I abandoned doing my valve clearances half way through last service as the threaded inspection covers were on tight. I haven't got the Honda 24mm rear wheel spanner so couldn't try Yen's tip, everything else was going to slip and I didn't want to b*gger the thing up.

Cheers Chris, I'll try this out at the weekend.

[robelst]

I always take the covers off, but the problem on my AT is that both ignition coil mounts are rotten solid so can't get them loose without certain death of some expensive bits. What I do is lifting the cover, pushing it up and around depending what valve is up for checking, using organic material from the garden to keep the cover in position while working on the adjusters. Heath Robinson would have been proud of me. Best bit is that the last two times only 1 out of 6 valves could do with a tiny adjustment and surely would have been perfectly fine if I had not touched it at all. This is definitely one of the territories where the AT does show its good reputation for quality, even when it is deeply hidden away .

[Chris J Barrett]

You are quite right. A good rule of thumb is if you can hear the valves rattling about a bit then all is well. I hear mine mainly riding down hill in 2nd or 3rd gear with no load on the engine ie. engine braking.