Same thing happened to me when I did the first 600 mi service on my 05 S40. The valves' clearance were all on the ball. So I went through all the trouble of taking off the tank to inspect the intake valves for nothing . But I did come out ahead with $300 in my wallet. This is why I love SAVAGE(reliable and trustworthy). Come to think of it, my wife is the same . I think I'll keep the wife and Savage as my mistress 8)

D@MN!
You are supposed to have an excuse?? ???

Thanks to helpful information from this forum supplementing my Clymer manual I thought I would breeze through my first break-in service, including the valves.  Reality was not so simple, particularly retightening the head bolts.  I mean, what a chore to get to – seat off, tank off, side cover off, top engine mount off, head cover off with all those fiddly bolts!  At least I knew which to remove, leave in place or not to touch.  Naturally I rotated the engine ANTI-clockwise to set TDC after being alerted to Clymer’s error on this site.

The head cover was still snug and I resisted the temptation to pry against the fins having learned a bitter lesson doing this in the past on another bike.  A firm upward pull did the trick.  Ah ha – there’s that famous plug that has to come out to get to the front right head nut.  I popped it out cleanly from underneath using a bent hex key wrench leveraging against the head nut.   There was no sealant applied from the factory.  

Now to the first problem – no way could I use my trusty Snap On torque wrench in the tight clearance for the front and rear studs under the head.  So I figured I’d just torque the four main stud nuts with the copper washers after backing them off a quarter turn or so.  A final tightening at 24 ft.lbs. put them back near original so nothing had loosened much.  I also checked the two stud nuts under the head by “feel” and they seemed good.  Leave well enough alone.  

I popped in a new cover plug but the original looked fine.  Here came the first Uh-Oh!  I got the prescribed Suzuki sealant, Three Bond #1216 from the dealer and it is a grey paste unlike the factory black silicone RTV.  Hmmmm….. too late now so I ran a bead in the groove of the plug and tapped it in squarely with a socket.  Now came the laborious part cleaning all the original black RTV cement.  Acetone and xylenes (carb cleaner) worked well.  Next I applied moly assembly lube to all those pesky head cover bolt threads to be sure none seized and stripped during future tear downs.  

Not much room to slip the cover back in and from the left seemed best.  Now I had to worry about that O-ring and breather mesh falling loose and hurry before the new cement set.  Everything seemed fine so now it was time to tighten the bolts in stages.  Again, there was little room for a wrench so I used a fisherman’s spring scale and offset box wrench to set the final 6 ft.lbs.  Whew, back together and time for the valves.  

First, the automatic decompression arm had about 1 cm play that seemed excessive.  Clymer says 3 to 5mm so I set that.  Thank goodness I had special tappet feeler gages with offset stubby ends that could get in that tight space.  Intakes were fine at 0.004” but the exhausts were tight so I fiddled about to get them at 0.004” also (middle of spec range).  Finally everything could go back together.  Not the easiest first service I’ve done but having this forum has been a real help - much appreciated so thought I'd share, and wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR  

Rok,

Good write-up and I wish you no oil leaks!

Can you provide more info on the feeler gauges you used to measure the valve clearances?

BTW, you can properly torque all of the nuts and bolts you encounter on this job by creative use of "torque wrench adapters."  Using things like Gearwrenches, crow-foot wrenches, regular combination wrenches and small ratchet wrenches, you can make any torque wrench adapter you need.  You will need to measure the new moment arm that you will have and then calculate the proper torque reading.

Just remember that torque equals force times distance!

I hope this helps!

Or you could take apart the $4 feeler gauges from any auto parts store and bend them.  I find it much easier to use them one blade at a time.  And put them back together for storage.

BS37066 wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:01:


Good point, and I admit that I've done that.  On the other hand, the last time I tried, I broke it  

vroom1776 wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:01:


Nope.  The above rule is still true, regardless of the angle.  

If you add extensions or use an offset or crowsfoot, only the applied force changes.  Changing the angle requires that you recalulate the torque needed....i.e. longer distance equals lower force for the same torque.

Just remember that A² + B² = C²