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Valve clearance questions



Bike is a fuel injected Blackbird. Checking the clearances is a pain but
having to change the shims involves cams out. If I neglected the check would
the clearances tighten or loosen over time? What are the likely scenarios in
not checking at the 16k interval? Bike has just reached 32k.
They'll tighten up. The bike is unlikely to get any noisier. But
eventually you'll burn out the valve seats.

Actually, you don't have to physically take the cams out of the engine.
Zip-tie the cams to the camchain, and then you can work on one side at a
time, just moving the cam to one side. Because it's locked to the chain,
you'll never get the timing out.

An alternative is to put little paint blobs on the camchain pins and
corresponding ones on the sprockets. Makes life much easier and speeds
the job up.

But yes, you ought to check them at the recommended interval. If you're
lucky they might not need changing anyway.