PipJones wrote on 11/11/08 at 16:42:34:srinath wrote on 11/11/08 at 12:01:19:Idle and just off idle ticking is common on perfectly set valves on many many many bikes ... The short list is ...
GS500, Virago 535/750/1100, GSXR all air oil cooled varieties and many water cooled ones too, SV650/1000, savage, Kawi 500 ninja and vulcan, yamaha maxim and radian, many more ...
Only hydraulic valves or bikes with a lot of sound absorbing material, or specifically designed water jackets to take up the noise are quiet.
Valves beginingto get too loose will make a loud enough noise you'd get annoyed long before it does any real damage.
Valves going tight will first act up as the bike is getting warmed up on cold start ... wanting to stall unless you blip the throttle till it gets hot is the first sign.
I'd be surprised if you see anythign out of normal in yours.
Cool.
Srinath.
valves going tight? what do you mean tight? because my bike is acting up on me while warming up.
The bike will misfire and want to die upon startup, it will need to have throttle blipped and just want to die till its fully up to temperature.
The valve clearance is near 0 at cold lets say ... what it does is, upon getting fully hot, that 0 clearance increases slightly ... maybe go from 0 to 1 thousandts. The bike will run great if it is at 0, makes no problem for it. It runs well at 1 ... however in the time it takes to warm up, it can get to below 0 (negative implies the vlave is hanging open during the compression combustion cycle - cos it never closes) because the motor does not heat up evenly ... valves, especially exhaust valves get hot a lot faster than the surrounding head. Now valves dissipate heat at the time they are closed ... by transmitting it into the head. A period of time when warming up they will be runnign very hot, and till the head gets hotter valves will be very hot and stay open.
The other thing about setting the clearance nice and big ... the valves sit in the head for that extra few 1000's on each stroke and they will cool better ...
That is the short version of the story ...
Cool.
Srinath.