So I just bought my bike a couple of weeks ago and am just about to hit the 500 mile mark. The dealer told me that it is important to get it checked out after that initial break in period. Which from what I've read on here seems to hold true. But here's my dilemma. The dealership is gonna charge me 150 bucks to do the checkup. Now I'm fairly handy with a wrench, but I've never worked on a bike before. I've kept a 1963 studebaker hawk running for the past 4 years (which is no small task), so I'm pretty sure I could handle most of what the bike can throw at me. Is it worth the 150 bucks to have a "proffessional" look at it... or should I just grab a Clymer shop manual and go for it?

The first one is very important!!! The main thing is changing the oil & filter, gets the metal and assembly oils out of the engine before they start working against it. Otherwise it's just checking valve clearance, belt condition and tightness, spokes for tightness, bolts torqued to proper specs., cable routing, fluid levels, tire wear for alignment issues, brake adjustment and visual check of pads, basically, things you should be doing ocassionally anyways. This is what I do for the first service at the dealership I work at. If you're handy with a wrench, taking it to the dealer is probably just putting money in their pocket.

Take a few hours to take off the tank and adjust the valves.  After the first adjustment at 500 miles, I just did it again in an hour at 2000 miles......and will do it every 4000 miles from here on out.  That hour was 'taking my time'.  Here's what I can remember off the top of my head:

Remove seat (2 bolts on side, one in back)

Remove Gas line at petcock, rubber vacuum line from petcock at the other side of the bike, and the speedo connection at the crankcase.

Remove tank (2 bolts in back, one white connector up front....pull up in the back and slide back and to the left a hair.)

Remove Big Disk on left of crankcase (Big washer in a pair of vise grips works well).  Line up mark with notch in crankcase (at 3 oclock).    
Check if there is a gap at the valve adjustment spot, if not turn the engine over to 3 oclock again.

Remove access covers and anything else in way like that big rubber tube on the right side of the engine at the top.
Loosen nut with 10mm box end wrench
Hand snug the screw down on a .004 gapper
Tighten nut.
Do other 3.
Recheck.

Put back together.

I believe you turn it clockwise,  can someone confirm as I don't have a manual and my 'other' Suzuki manual (Z400 sport quad) doesn't say what direction either.  I believe the the force needed to turn the motor is a lot less than the torque setting on that bolt so it probably doesn't really matter.  An easy way to tell with the cover off (remove plug boot) is to bump the motor....

rkutzner wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:08:



You are on the left side of the motor, so turn it counterclockwise.  If in doubt, put it in 5th gear and rotate the tire in the direction it would turn if you were riding - counterclockwise from the left-hand side.

what the H is widdershins??

Could have sworn I was the only member of the SCA on here...
-WD

Boy, you go on vacation and everyone starts talking a different language...

So, didja check the valves yet?