Valve Clearances

A check I think should be around £150 but if there is any shims that need changing.... then £400 is quite likely.
 
Yeah like fireskull says a valve adjustment will be more probably around the 3-4 hundred mark. A valve check should be much cheaper. Trouble is you won't know if they need adjusting until they are checked so you could be in for a big bill.

A haynes manual is all of 15 quid and checking valves is pretty straight forward.
 
It's a big job and if you don't know what you're doing it can go pretty badly. £400 just for adjustments is pretty steep though. I think mine cost me £200.

I know my way around a bike but it's not something I'd tackle one weekend.
 
Very simple on your Bonnie. On an R1 you've got the faff of taking off fairings. Probably taking the tank off too. It's certainly an easy job to do yourself over a weekend though.

I'm quite surprised that the cost goes from 150 to 400. Unless the latest bikes are wildly different to mine then if you can check the valve clearances you can adjust them with very little extra work.
 
Nah you still need to take the tank off the Bonnie and on the 2013 there's a clamp that needs replacing if you take it off the tank. Pain in the ass.

I do everything else on my bike it's just the valve checks that seem not worth my time considering my weekends are precious to me! :) (it's also my commuter so I wouldn't want to break it for Monday!)
 
It's not a massively difficult job but can depends on the bike. Done it on my 03 GSXR750 and 01 600 easily, but then managed to slip the cam timing on my 05 ZX6R and I'm now in for an engine rebuild to replace the valves. On the 05 6R, the frame is right in the way of the timing marks so you have to drop the engine just to see it properly.
 
Don't do it then, do it yourself, or shop around some more. I had a place quote me around £500 for a valve clearance check on a bike probably worth about £1.5k at best, got it down to about £200 in the end but still never got around to it.
 
Last edited:
Considering the low value of the bike, and the huge cost of having the valve clearances done, I am going to gamble to just not having them done.

What's the absolute worst that could happen?
 
Back
Top Bottom