Valve adjustments

One picture tells more than a thousand words, right? So here we go:

That's my notes of measuring, adjusting and measuring and probably not very useful for anyone else than me. So I made a sheet that's divided on horizontal intake, horizontal exhaust, vertical intake, vertical exhaust and those are divided in chain side (left) and belt side (right) and again divided in closer and opener. There are ready made templates all around on the internet but I used my own which took only couple minutes to draw with google docs.

The valves weren't way off, depending which spec you follow. Vertical intake left closer was .008 inch and that was the biggest clearance there was. I still did some fine tuning and even ended up changing couple bits but that's all. I decided I'll follow LT Snyder's specs and not to worry too much for less than .001 differences except when the gap is smaller than LT or Ducati spec. More experienced guys always tell they used to fine tune by sanding shims down to get exactly when they were young but stopped worrying too much when they gained some experience. So I guess the settings I got as a result are decent:

Left opener
.0055
(no adjustment)

Right opener
.004
(tight, sanded down a bit)

Left opener
.007
(a bit tight, no adjustment)

Right opener
.007
(was .004, changed shim)

Left closer
.004
(was ~ .0025)

Right closer
.0045
(was .003)

Left closer
.004
(bit tight, but was .003)

Right closer
.004
(was .003)

Left opener
.0045
(no adjustment)

Right opener
.004
(sanded down, was .0035)

Left opener
.0065
(no adjustment)

Right opener
.006
(was .0055, sanded down)

Left closer
.005
(was .008, changed shim)

Right closer
.005
(no adjustment)

Left closer
.0045
(bit loose, no adjustment)

Right closer
.004
(no adjustment)

LT's specs are bit tighter at some places and in some places they fit in Ducati's spec. LT says:

Intake opener: .004
Intake closer: .004

Exhaust opener: .006
Exhaust closer: .004

The Ducati spec in the LT's book isn't the same as in my Workshop manuals so I didn't write down those here, but the basic idea is that too small clearance is as bad as too big. There has to be clearance or the surfaces won't get lubricated. I would guess that big clearance on intake opener side could cause backfire but generally it's probably to avoid hammering the shim/valve with rocker arm.

The job is quite easy when you have the heads on the table. However pressing the rocker arm to get loaded gap is tricky with traditional way (pushing with screwdriver or small socket) so I took couple old screwdrivers and bent them so I was able to close the closer gap from between the back side of the rocker arm and the clinder head:

Those MotionPro tappet feeler gauges are really must have as it's so much easier to measure than with traditional ones. There are couple sizes missing. I'd like to have .007, .010 and perhaps .011 or so. Of course one could use .008 and .002 together and so on since I have two sets, but it's a bit tricky to get accurate measurement that way.

Once I got the inspection covers cleaned and all the bolts tightened, I realized it would have been handy to clean the valves while they are unlocked. Of course I realized it afterwards so I guess I have to remove every valve once again. Well, still don't have the shim for the crank so I nothing else to do meanwhile :)