Let me begin by saying I did this my way. Why is that? Because the f'ing TR650 shop manual did not include instructions on how to remove the fuel tank and air box. That's why. This is just a pictorial on how I chose to check the valve clearances @6k miles. This task is not for the faint of heart and is a bit involved. Begin by putting your bike up on the lift and taking the seat off: If you don't have a lift, the job is still possible, but harder. Now that you have your bike in a vulnerable position, you need to assert your dominance. Do not show any fear to this beast or it will realize it can overcome you and take the alpha position in the relationship. Next remove the panel around the fill cap: Then proceed to remove the body panels (If you can't figure out how to take these off by yourself, stop here. The rest of this will be way over your head): With the panels now off, begin to tackle the front fairing around the airbox: Take the air filter out: Looking inside, you can see a fair amount of dust that eludes the air filter. Not enough to make me lose any sleep, but I know this bike isn't a Toyota, so we'll see what the lasting effects are:
Here is where things start to get crazy. To remove the valve cover, you need to remove the throttle body, fuel tank and air box. To remove the fuel tank, YOU HAVE TO TAKE THE SUB FRAME OFF. Absolute BS on the design of this bike. And since the so called shop manual doesn't even touch on this, I had to work around it. I started looking at how intricate it would be to remove the subframe by removing the rear body panels. You can see that the fuel tank is squeezed in place by the front arm of the subframe. This is madness. And I really didn't feel like unhooking the exhaust and hangers, and the whole tail section: At this point I decided to try and work around the fuel tank, but still try to remove the airbox. They are intertwined by the filler neck and pretty complicated. The air box is held in place by a big Phillips screw located right behind the radiator: So now you have to remove the radiator (don't worry, this gets even better). Remove the two torx bits from the top and it pops off: Suspend your coolant tank so it doesn't stress the hose and break: This lovely canister thing is also in the way: Remove this beast and save for the shooting range: Disconnect this vent line from the bottom of the airbox once you remove the large phillip's screw: I believe this is the vacuum actuator for the bike, using a flathead slide it off of its metal perch (right side of bike): This electrical connector is on the left side of the bike and needs removed too: With all of this crap now disconnected and out of the way, you have enough room to lift the airbox and slide it to the right side of the bike, giving you room to get at the valve cover:
Here we see the exotic coils in their natural state: The manual says to use a flathead to pry them up from the valve cover, but I just used my beaters. I guess if you have small, girly little lotion covered hands this could be a challenge: Notice that the coil with the white collar goes towards the outside of the bike. It is also the one with the white tape on the wires. DO NOT mix these up when putting the bike back together. I don't know what would happen, but the manual repeats itself several times stating the obvious. So something bad has to happen. Remove the coils from the electrical connectors and set them in a safe place. These things look godawful expensive. Remove this electrical connector from the frame on the left side of the bike: With it disconnected, you can now pull this wiring harness out from the right side of the bike giving you more room: Now you can attack the valve cover itself:
Here are the bolts (10mm) that hold the red cover of grief in place: The bolt on the back left is conveniently located right under the throttle body. Great. But with a short extension you can get the 10mm socket in there: More to come on this throttle body from Satan... Remove the breather line from the top of the valve cover: Here is a close up of why the throttle body sucks. The bracket holding the throttle cable in place sticks out perfectly locking the bolt in place: Remove the throttle cable with 6mm and 10mm wrenches: Remove the bracket for the O2 sensor from the frame (this gives you more room): Remove this vacuum line from the brass fitting on the throttle body: Remove your upper oil line. Don't worry, nothing should come out: There was some funky $hit going on inside mine. I have no clue what all of the randomly colored particles inside the line were from, but it looks like there was a party with confetti inside there: Squeeze the remaining oil line between the valve cover and the left side of the frame: The damn bracket on the throttle body is just big enough to prevent you from tilting the valve cover up. So with a special torx bit, loosen the top screw: Having fun yet? Now tilt the bracket back to give you just enough clearance to move the valve cover. Pliers can help but be careful not to break or bend anything. There is no way in hell to remove or loosen that bottom screw:
You should now be able to slide the cover up and around a little bit: This is as good as it gets. You're not getting that damn thing out of there without removing the subframe. So deal with it: Go to the right side of the bike and locate the big hex on the engine cover: I did not have an allen large enough to fit that (Who the hell does?) so I used an old bolt: Once removed you can see a smaller allen inside that allows you to turn the motor: Turn the engine until the lines on the gears are level with the top of the casting and the witness pins are located at the top of the gears: For whatever reason they are never perfectly level... Here are the specs on the valves: Here are where you check the valve clearances. The ones on the right are the exhaust valves, ones on the left intake: Now you can finally check your valves. There is enough room to get to the far ones without removing the cover. Mine were at 0.009, 0.009, 0.0015, and 0.0015. At the very bottom limit... does anyone know if these wear loose or tight? Now step back and look at your bike: It is really taken apart and you wonder what you did. Where the hell do all of these parts go to? At this point you can now go outside, away from the bike, and cry. Good luck getting it back together. All of those connectors, vacuum lines, little torx screws... I'm done for the day. I have to go to work in an hour, so I'll mess with putting it back together tomorrow. I am not looking forward to checking the valves again later this year. If anyone can correct me about removing the fuel tank, airbox and throttle body without removing the subframe, please tell me. Done.
No f^&%$ing way am I doing that myself, and I rebuild old bikes. Thank you for the write up, makes me even more of an airhead snob when it comes to checking valve lash.
I think they wear tight. maybe all that dirt getting past your air filter ground down your valve seats. Awesome pics and write up, thanks for posting this. It's a big help! --Chris
I had been actually thinking about a TR650 as my next bike, ..until now.... on my old school 450, I take 1 thing off to check the valves, the red valve train cover, 4 bolts.
I'm wondering if you remove the front engine brace ( the piece of metal that hangs down behind the radiator ) could you get the valve cover off? Looks like there might be just enough clearance Heck, taking the motor out might be easier than removing the tank and subframe
If only for the sheer joy of reading, Rugged Exposure you've lived up to your namesake! I can confirm that indeed the sub frame 'has' to come off! Along with air box, throttle body and all associated spaghetti, gotta' love them Italians! I just picked my bike up on sat from Mike at Marin Moto Works in San Rafael, whom after painstakingly researching on line and not wanting to drop the motor, as was suggested by Husky somewhere during his search, basically arrived at the same conclusion. I guess the good news for anyone in the bay area is despite this painstaking procedure he's willing to work on the TR's, he's a good bloke is Mike. Fabulous write up and a standing ovation for your efforts! Let us know how the reverse procedure goes and any post thoughts on this operation.
When I was speaking to the workshop manager at my local Husky dealer not long after I bought my Terra, he'd just come back from the "factory training" they'd been running in Australia and he confirmed that removing the subframe to remove the fuel tank to get to the top of the engine was the factory procedure for checking the valves.
Plus one for me, this bloke's a legend, not a chance in china of me tackling that gig. I will use my trusty screwdriver to listen for four ticking sounds and when there is no tick I will throw my wallet on the floor in front of the tech, jump on it a few times and plead poor. I did post a thread on the air box allowing dirty air in and here is the proof.
RE, you are a good man. THANKS for posting this--it's a real boon to the forum. You are the first pioneer to tackle this job on here and it looks like it was a bear. I am about 2k miles from this and hope to do it myself. This post will definitely come in handy. You might call a good dealer to confirm that these valves tighten over time. If that is the case the good news is that they haven't moved much (at all) since the bike left the factory.
Do not underestimate the effects of dust on any internal combustion engine; especially a motor bike engine that has fine tolerances. This design aspect is a real disappointment for a bike that is sold as an offroader/dual sport. A great write up as a basis to help whether to comtemplate attempting this task.
