Thursday, March 24, 2016

The sounds of spring: time to do a valve adjustment on the Guzzi


I know it's spring when I hear the clickity-clack of quattro valvole (translation from the original Italian: 4-valve).

It's time to do a valve adjustment on my Moto Guzzi Norge. With the help of my granddaughter Tara, we documented how much out of adjustment the valves were and then put them back to where they needed to be.

The Guzzi valve adjustment interval is about 6000-miles; it's been just over 7500-miles since I last adjusted them, so they're due. I'm not going to give you a step by step "how to" in this blog post; others have posted excellent step-by-step instructions you can follow. (For example, click here.)

What is more useful for me is documenting how much the valve adjustment has changed since the last time I did this maintenance:

1st adjustment done on 5/28/2014,  odometer: 3558
      next adjustment on 3/22/2016,  odometer: 11116
                                                                           7558 miles   in 2 years...that's so sad :( 

Here are my two cylinders with valve covers removed looking down on the tops of the valves. Tara recorded the clearances as I measured them using a feeler gauge. 


(Yeah, I use Imperial units rather than Metric. I can't help it.)

The intake valves should be at .006". One valve on the right side was at spec. The other 3 needed adjustment, but not a whole lot of adjustment. I take that as a good sign.

The exhaust valves should be at .008". One on the left side was good and the other 3 needed adjustment. 

In truth, the valve noise was not very loud...