Senior moment of the week.

[royhall]

I am just rebuilding the top end of my GS1000 after refurbing the parts. I arrived at the bit I hate namely refitting the valves. Anyone who has done a Honda head will know the retaining collets can be quite tricky to locate on the valve, well a bucket and shim head is even harder as there is no room at all for fingers. Anyway, after about and hour and a half of sweating and swearing I finally got the last valve done. After some Yes Yes Yes and air punching I decided to clear the bench, just to the left I noticed a small plastic bag with eight high quality Viton valve stem seals within. Yes you guessed it I had forgotten to fit the stem seals. Tomorrow I get to do the whole rotten job all over again. Old age does nothing good to a person.

[Laverda Dave]

I feel your pain Roy. I've just ground and refitted the same type of valve arrangement to the Z400J. The collets and valves caps are so small it was nigh on impossible to get my fingers in the space to fit the collets once the spring compressor was in there. To make it worse the valve caps were angled making the compressor slip. I made sure my head was out of the way when it came to fitting the collets (with a magnet and small screwdriver in the end).

[royhall]

I ended up putting a tiny dab of grease on the collet then sticking it to the valve with a magnetic screwdriver. A little trick I shall be using again tomorrow.

[philward]

I ended up putting a tiny dab of grease on the collet then sticking it to the valve with a magnetic screwdriver. A little trick I shall be using again tomorrow.

Thats the same trick as I use Roy

[Johnwebley]

Turn them into 2 strokes


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[mike the bike]

I used to have a special Suzuki tool to depress the bucket to whip the shims out.  It made the job 10 times easier.

[royhall]

Unfortunately it won't help this job Mike as the valve collets are under the buckets.

[mike the bike]

I know but it does make swapping shims easier. 
Wasn't there an engine where the shims are under the buckets instead of on top?  That must be a nightmare to work on.

[royhall]

Yes there is. It's the preferred modification on Suzuki powered drag bikes that for some reason people have adopted for the road. Your right about the special tool it's a doddle to change shims with that.

[Bryanj]

Some Kawasakis have the shims under, you need to do a CBX, evenwith a tool is a royal pia

[royhall]

Not to mention the cost of the shims at a tenner a go.

[Seabeowner]

Some Kawasakis have the shims under, you need to do a CBX, evenwith a tool is a royal pia

Z650 among others. Had to remove cams I think. But only needed to do it once in 4 years.

[Bryanj]

As to the original senior moment, how about fitting a 750 morgo kit to a Triumph T110(pre unit) turning round and finding 2 gudgeon pin circlips on top of the gatepost with no idea if they are new or used!!

[Johnwebley]

When I used to race, I built an IMP motor, that had shims under the bucket.

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[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

It's a long time ago but I had done an engine  rebuild on my 1275 Mini Cooper, engine back in, hardy spicer drive shafts connected, oil cooler & brake servo fitted carbs & exhuast back on finished at about 2.00am on a Sat night ready to fire up the next day when distributor fitted & brakes bled. Went to bed then next morning the doubts crept in - I could not remember torquing up the big ends and tapping over the steel lock tabs.

Engine out, bell housing off, gearbox off - tabs had not been knocked back but I had tightened the big ends - worked all day to get it running again by midnight. After that I developed a tick box routine to check stuff as I went through big stages like fitting the gearbox & bell housing.

I empathise with you completely we have all done similar things it's part of being human.