Is it just me, or does it take around 2 hours to check and adjust the valves on an '08 610? Does anyone have any tips to make it less painful and expensive? What I mean by cost is the $20. in coolant and $10 in tappet gaskets? For some reason I always seem to tear every time I remove the cover I usually check them and the cam tensioner about every 1500 miles, which may be over kill, but I figure after every 4th oil change, its time to check them out. Thanks
Glue the gaskets to the covers with 3M super weather strip adhesive and use a very thin coat of gold RTV on the head side. They will never leak, the gasket will never slip and when you gently pry the cover off the next time the gasket will stay in one piece on the cover. All you have to do is just kind of rub the old silicon off and reapply a new coat before reinstalling. Yes it takes a couple hrs. for me to but while I have the tank off I go over all the bolts and re torque everything.
It shouldn't cost you any coolant. Instead of removing the radiators, only remove mounting hardware, leave the hoses on and simply pull the rads back outta the way with small bungie cords.
It actually takes me longer. I tried to do the valves by moving the radiators and not taking them off, but that took me longer to work around them. Now I just suck it up and change the coolant when I do the valves. The part I hate is trying to get the fuel tank off without getting fuel everywhere.
In a compromise of the two styles I've disconnected the upper hoses on each radiator carefully loosing a little coolant. That allowed me to swing them way out of the way bungeed to the bar ends where I was able to get to the exhaust valves. Last time I was thinking that I might only need to do the right radiator as the motor is biased to the right. Of course I also pulled the overflow bottle as I was doing some other stuff too and that made access downright easy.
Here's what I have learned tunning my 2000 model, just a suggestion: Feel the clearance on the push in of the feeler gauge. If you will notice when you pull the feeler out it binds up and sort of churps giving the impression that the clearance is tight. This is because of the sharp bend it makes comming out of the opening in the rocker cover. Also remove your lock nut wrench and screw driver before checking as thier weight gives false readings. As to the radiator removal, I always remove mine and flush them out with the garden hose. And this makes cleanning the top end of the engine very ez. I give it a good scrub with Gunk engine degreaser then hose off. It will look like this when your done:
