Valve Clearance/Camchain Tolerance

[Thumper]

Well the big restoration/refit of my '79F XS started about 3-4 weeks ago as three winters of driving 3 miles to work in snow ice and rock salt just left her looking a bit too tatty and some parts are starting to disintegrate, it's gonna be a long nine months but I should have the big lady gleaming for her 25th year. If anybody out there has a manual (I haven't got around to buying one yet) could they please tell me the exhaust and intake valve clearances. Also I would be very grateful if you could tell me what method of testing camchain life/tolerance is given in the manual, I remember that with my old Kawasaki you had to measure something like 23 links of the chain and if it was over a certain length it was due for replacement. Thanks for your help in advance as I'm sure one of you fellas will have the right info. Thanks again. ThUmPeR!!!

[Ken Talbot]

Valve shim thickness tables are available here

I haven't come across a measurement for the cam chain. Once you get to know these bikes, you can tell by sound if the chain is a bit loose, and whether or not the slack adjuster has reached the limit of its operation. I've got a stretched chain around here somewhere that was due for replacement. If I can find it, I'll measure it and see what we can come up with........

[MartyA]

Regarding the cam chain length, Clymers has nothing about wear length as I recall. You would have to remove it anyway to measure it, and unless your current one is a replacement, there is no master link. I determined that mine needed replaced when there was no adjustment left in the tensioner.

Check here, Jurek has some good info on changing a cam chain and the length as he measured it. I just replaced mine and did not compare old to new.

http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63

If that does not answer your question, come back.

[Thumper]

Thanks lads. What about the valve clearances, I wanna get them measured and order any new thickness of shims I might need.

[MartyA]

According to Clymers:
Exhaust = 0.21-0.24mm
Intake 0.16-0.20mm.

Inches-
0.008-0.0095 and 0.006-0.0079 respective.

Clymers suggests adjusting to the smaller dimension for best performance.