Time and my list of tasks

move on.

It was time to tackle the valves. This is a job I’ve only done once before, on my Tiger, so I was confident that it was a fairly easy job. 

Now, I don’t know if/when this job was done on the Trophy before but according to the service schedule, it needs doing every 6000 miles. Armed with my Torx bits, the valve cover bolts came undone with ease and a short, sharp tap with the rubber mallet loosened the valve cover. 

The cover took a little effort to remove from the bike, mainly because of the wiring loom, but off it came, with the gaskets intact. A quick inspection and I think they’re reusable.

The left side of the engine with the valve cover removed.

All clearances checked and given a clean bill of health for the next 6000 miles

The right side equally as good.

The valve clearances should be:

• Intake valves = 0.10 - 0.15 mm (.004-.006 inch)
• Exhaust valves = 0.15 - 0.20 mm (.006 - .008 inch)

All of them were within spec

To be honest, the most difficult part of the whole job was turning the engine over to open each valve so I could check it. Even in 6^th gear and turning the rear wheel (I had to put the rear wheel back in for this job) wasn’t that easy. 

It turns out all the valves were within tolerance. Putting the valve cover back on was a bit of a challenge, even using silicon gasket as the service manual recommends. I ended up ‘sticking’ the gasket to the valve cover and leaving it overnight, so it didn’t move when replacing the cover. I had to replace the valve cover bolt gaskets, which I ordered from Sprint manufacturing, but apart from that, it was a low cost, easy job to complete.

One more job to tick off the list.