"Did the valve clearances on the BMW GS last night" thread in "Motorbike Chat"
Originally Posted by Mr. Dazzle Oh I dunno...by my reckoning, and assuming you can spot a 1mm change in level, using 3-in-1 instead of water ...

YAY!

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Yes, it's me, err, him, errr

Actually...having thought about it a bit, that's actually quite a lot. It works out as being about 20% better...

Talking of shims and valves, when I brought my Honda CB750FA New Year of 1983 by the summer of 83 it needed its 2nd service which included the vales clearance doing, being a good boy and wanting to keep the service book all up to date with dealer stamps I booked it in to the Honda Centre in Old Colwyn.
The bike was great when I got it back. In the September of 83 my mate and I decided to take off to the Bol Dor at the Circuit Paul Ricard South of France. We had a great time Apart from another mate who got lost and tried to make up time to catch us up, he fell asleep at the handle bars and rod into the centre armco with his girlfriend on the back both died.
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After doing about 4000 miles since the service and arriving back home the next day the bike sized and spat me off down the road. Now the only people to touch the insides of the engine where the Honda Centre I took it back to them to find out why it had sized. When they stripped the engine they found that someone had dropped a shim down the cam chain tunnel into the sump, the shim then found its way to the primary cam chain and trapped itself between the chain and the crank and locked everything up.
The first thing the Honda Centre said was that “I” must have dropped it down there so it was my fault, after 6 weeks of arguing with them they told me to shove it and one of their mechanics dropped the stripped down bike on my door step in boxes, I took them to court in the end and won the case. The mechanic which did the service stood on the stand and said that if “I” had not dropped the shim it possible was in there from the production line.

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I used ATF in mine, Nice bright red, good viscosity, and will cause no harm if sucked into a cylinder.

got mine off the ebay,£30. not a vacuum guage, more potentiometer and highly sensitive, so ideal for the idle screw set up.
£60 new iirc, google is your friend and boxertrix and a few other sites have a walkthrough of how to use it.

That was the other reason I used 3-in-1. but if it does happen you've been VERY hamfisted.

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non quod, sed quomodo

Unless you use acid, sand or caustic soda in the manometer I don't think engine harm is a big risk.

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A fool may ask questions a wise man cannot answer.

Home servicing is the way forward. Just got my GS back from the 24k service. I had to give them my credit card AND both kidneys.

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'Cause when love is gone, there's always justice
And when justice is gone, there's always force
And when force is gone, there's always mom.

The only thing the Dealer can do which home servicing can't is the ABS error computer check and error code remove - IF you have ABS?

The rest is actually pretty easy stuff. (although a trained person to check bearing play etc is a good thing I will admit).

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non quod, sed quomodo

GS-911 is a nifty device to do all that - the GS people have used it to great effect in Morocco etc.

Pricy, but then so's a dealer plugging in a connector and pressing 'test' on their computer...