Resolved!: Screwed up big -- trusted the dealer for the first valve check

[Niehart]

Always make me nervous when Gregg [scooterG] makes sense.

 

[jammess]

Man, I am glad this turned out the way it did! If I were you I wouldn't hesitate to return to this dealer again. I think you can trust them.

 

[DennisJ]

Training dealer mechanics is like training your doctor. Takes a lot of patience and persistence. Once trained though, they can generally be trusted a little more.

 

[TomInPA]

A Merry Christmas to us all; God bless us, every one!

 

[whataboutbob]

Glad for you Redzgrinder;Mine is due ,if Orlando wasn't 2 hours away I'd take it there since they had a fresh look at what not to mess-up!

 

[hppants]

This is great - I'm very glad it worked out positively without more drama. And your partial refund is certainly a clear show of good faith. We all make mistakes. How we handle them is what counts. Perhaps it wouldn't matter, but at this point, I'd be inspired to write mama Yammie and share good tidings regarding the dealer.

The icing on the cake is credibility to the theory that THIS FORUM is indeed the center of the FJR universe. Within minutes, we (this forum) diagnosed the problem without seeing or hearing it. At least for THIS fart sniffer, that's the 2nd best part.....

 

[Fred W]

Glad you are back in business.

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but there is still that issue of them claiming to have needed to adjust the shims due to excessive clearance. That almost never happens with these engines. If you can get a worksheet of what exactly they found and what shims they changed that would be a good reference to determine if it would be worth going back in and re-checking.

 

[eflyguy]

.. but they did look for and find what was wrong, so I applaud them quite a lot for that.

.. and they admitted their mistake which is huge. That said, I'm not happy about the valve shims either. I'd always have that on my mind...

 

[FJRBluesman]

Red;

Like I mentioned way back, for them to try and resolve this to your liking, your shop is golden, keep them. A mistake is not good, but they made it up to you, good deal.

Sorry for your drama but glad the dealer has been educated and you are back in the saddle! :yahoo:

 

[El Toro]

Have them send the shim spec sheet directly to Fred so it can be filed and saved.

Forget about it and enjoy the bike!

 

[Fred W]

Yeah, yeah... I get it. I'm obsessive compulsive about these kind of details.

But here's why I think it could be important in this circumstance: The shop claims the clearances were found to be too large. Experience and collective data shows that the valves on this engine wear in a way that reduces the clearances, not increases them. So the most likely reason for increasing clearances would be carbon buildup on the faces of the seats and valves not allowing them to seat coeectly.

If they have changed the shims by a large amount and then the buildup later burns off the result could be some acutely tight clearances, which as we all know is what we are striving to avoid in this whole valve check/adjust thing. If the shim changes they made were small, or had they erred and measured them too tight and then added too much clearance, it would be less worrisome.

 

[Pterodactyl]

I know that it would drive me crazy thinking about what was going on under that valve cover. But then, I checked my valves only 5,000 miles after adjusting all of them. Maybe if redzgrider just tells us that he checked them, then we would all shut up and the OC members could get back to cleaning and organizing their tools, with supporting documentation, of course.

 

[Geezer]

Personally, I would not be concerned about the valve adjustments just because the tech. may have left them on the tight side of the specification, as long as they are indeed within specification. You'll adjust them to where you like them when the next check is due.

 

[BakerBoy]

I know that it would drive me crazy thinking about what was going on under that valve cover. But then, I checked my valves only 5,000 miles after adjusting all of them. Maybe if redzgrider just tells us that he checked them, then we would all shut up and the OC members could get back to cleaning and organizing their tools, with supporting documentation, of course.

Great idea, but then we'd just wonder if redzg was just appeasing us. I'd think it preferable to be labeled Obsession Gifted though, not OC.

 

[El Toro]

Or obsession gelded.

Move along.

Nuthin' to see here.

 

[rbentnail]

Or obsession gelded.
Move along.

Nuttin' to see here.

ftfy

 

[lnewlf]

Yeah, yeah... I get it. I'm obsessive compulsive about these kind of details. But here's why I think it could be important in this circumstance: The shop claims the clearances were found to be too large. Experience and collective data shows that the valves on this engine wear in a way that reduces the clearances, not increases them. So the most likely reason for increasing clearances would be carbon buildup on the faces of the seats and valves not allowing them to seat coeectly.

If they have changed the shims by a large amount and then the buildup later burns off the result could be some acutely tight clearances, which as we all know is what we are striving to avoid in this whole valve check/adjust thing. If the shim changes they made were small, or had they erred and measured them too tight and then added too much clearance, it would be less worrisome.

Hmm-not likely that there was much carbon buildup.... but if they screwed up the clearance on just one valve,holding it open or not opening at all,it would run like sheeit...

 

[Fred W]

I agree. Not much carbon likely, but we don't know why they decided to reshim. It wasn't likely because the valve was too loose either.

Valve not opening enough? no biggee. Runs crappy, go figure it out.

Valve not closing? Biggee. Valve burns. Engine damaged. Whole reason we check valves in the first place.

 

[redzgrider]

Did a Cookie Run on Saturday, combination empty the 'shock' treatment from the fuel tank and ensure the motor felt good. Fuel mileage was crap at first - which I anticipated since it wasn't true fuel at that point, and getting it out was part of the plan. Next tank had numbers right in line with prior to the adjustment.

I saw the clearance map on my previous visit, where I pretty much convinced myself to take it home. None of the clearances were OOT, just at the wide end of tolerance.

For Pterodactyl: "I pulled it apart on Sunday, and checked all the clearances. None were out of tolerance, or even too near tolerance".

That better?

 

[Pterodactyl]

I'm sorry red, I'm just not buying it. Once again with some emotion, please. But thank you for trying.