The road bike is due a big service so I started on Sunday afternoon - easy bits first (oil and filter change, checked the pads, enough left for a while, not quite down to the wear marks, they can wait)
It's time for a valve clearance check, the first time I've done the job on this bike. Have a browse through the manual on CD, doesn't look too difficult, the actual checking operation is exactly the same as on my old ZXRs, swapping shims a little more involved as the cams will have to come out..
The bike was already on the workbench, bellypan and fairing sides removed, and I started this evening at 19:30, aiming to at least get as far as doing the checks... 3 hours later I'm now in the position to finally remove the cam cover so I call it a night... Jeez, are modern bikes complicated.. :road bikes especially - give me a race bike to work on any time - sooo many plugs to undo and stuff to get out of the way, and when I'd removed the injector bank I was faced with a thin rubber mat covering the top of the engine, that acts as a barrier to keep dirt and moisture away from all the electrics... easy enough, just pull that out of the way - not so fast...at the back of the engine it's threaded through both mounting bolts, so I'd need to remove them to free it off, and the top mounting bolts are already removed to gain access to the cylinder head so that wouldn't be a good idea, and at the front it goes over the top radiator mounts FFS! >
Only course of action was to remove more of the fairing to access the rad mounts and free it off, and the mat is now rolled to the back of the motor, out of the way. Next step, remove plug caps.. except Nos. 1 & 4 won't come straight out as there are flat plates bolted beneath the frame spars to accept the top engine mounts and they inhibit plug cap removal, 6 bolts, only two of which are accessible with a socket... :-? got 'em all out without any drama and removed the plug caps, and it was 22:35 so time to say sod it and give up for the night...
Modern bikes eh? on my old ZXR race bike I could have dropped the motor, rebuilt the top end and had it running again in that time (in my first race with Phase One we dropped a valve on the ZXR so we dropped the motor out, replaced barrels, head and one piston and rejoined the race in 57 minutes... honestly, it was pretty impressive to watch, and the late great David Jefferies got changed out of his leathers and helped me to strip the necessary bits off the spare engine, then got changed again and took the bike back out. Top man, he really was) [smiley=thumbsup.gif]
