XJ750 Valve Adjustment, requesting some eyes.

Forgive me, I have sinned. I rode a bike with valves which had not been checked.
Thus I do declare, and pledge to repent.



So, This is the information I collected upon careful, methodical feeler'ing of the spacing of cams and shims. All of my intake shims are within tolerances, I'll be checking on I3 and I4 next time around, hopefully won't be for a...while. Three of four Exhausts are tight.
E1 is 0.09mm, E2 is 0.12mm, and E4 is 0.10mm
I find the fact that E3 is perfectly midrange when the others aren't is strange, but I feelerised it a good three times, including after flipping the engine over a few times, so I'm not going to question it, I'll just believe.
I read the bad shims, got the information in the picture
E1 has a 275 shim, E2 has a 270, and E4 has a 275
Because of the greater difference between what I read and what it should read for E1 and E4, I calculated that I need three of the same shim, 265, to put my exhaust valves within the .15mm to .20mm range.

I beg forgiveness for having not done this sooner, and ask that the XJ Yama-gods pity me and tell me if I'm right about needing the three 265 shims.
Am I destined for smooth, purring heaven, or vibrating, overheating hell?

Also, when it comes to getting the correct shims, whichever sizes they may be, I understand that there is or was a shim pool. I wanted to ask if that's still a thing, if the sizes needed are available, and generally come to an understanding about how I could participate if it's possible.

 

”Yama-gods"......., that's great!!!

 

You did your math right, and used the correct specs.

Now start a logbook with a chart with what each installed valve shim is. The next clearance adjustment will go faster that way.

Shims are 29mm.
Start a conversation with Hogfiddles for the shim pool.

Don't be concerned about some valves having differnt clearances than others. That is a normal thing.

 

Wonderful, I'll be getting in contact with Hogfiddles soon to see if he has what my engine desires.

I definitely second keeping records of this kind of stuff. Bikes this old, anything this old or older, you don't know how things are adjusted, if things are in spec, what's been fixed and what's been "fixed".
This bike has its question marks in that regard, but I'm trying to figure out the answers.
The last person to wrench on it at all wrote nothing down when he brought it from a non functional state to running (my own poor foolish brother). He was in tech school, we were both offered non functioning Maxims, long story about cleaning the huge storage unit of an Uncle who apparently bought every busted Maxim in the state of Massachusetts to frankenbike into one that worked, but just never got around to it (reading on here, looks like it wouldn't have worked anyway, most of his models weren't compatible.) I got shafted, and I'm not talking about final drives, but when dear brother moved back to our hometown of Las Vegas, I got the bike and I've been cleaning his mess ever since, so between bodily threats and extortion to get him to remember what he did to what's now my bike, and getting in there and discovering what's what for myself, it's all, ALL being typed up, written down, slicked over with oil and preserved for future use.

 

Sounds like you are going to end up with an awesome bike! I did the same thing to mine all with the fantastic help from the guys on here and now I have a bike that runs great!

 

one time i did my valve and had a few intakes at .11 like you do. i changed them to .16, out of spec but comming in rather than going out. just something to think about

 

Or check them in 2.5k miles instead of the scheduled 5k.

Gary H.

 

I was thinking about doing like Polock is suggesting, but when I thought about the clearance differences from cylinder to cylinder, I've got a 0.02mm difference for two intake valves as is, but I'd have a 0.03mm if I swapped the two slightly tighter shims. Of course this assumes perfect readings, dead accurate shim thicknesses, and a bunch of other impossible hypotheticals, but I feel like doing the next check sooner would work just as fine, as Rocs brings up. At this rate I've still got plenty of time til the next 2500 miles gets tacked onto my odometer anyway since I only put on just over 1000 miles in the last year. It's likely I'll just swap all of the intakes if they tighten up evenly, assuming they change at all, given they've not done that much in the last three decades.
I've got the bike back together, I'm still riding it because it's either two wheels or two feet for me and I don't care for footing it, but I'm in contact with Hogfiddles, hoping he gets back to be about availability of the shims I need soon. The new gasket and bolt seals won't give me any issues when I have to open it back up to get the new shims in, I hope.