So, since she's due for an oil change tomorrow, why not also do the major portions of a minor service as well? Today after work I removed the valve covers and checked and adjusted the valve lash clearances. All of them were pretty tight! So I adjusted them until I just felt a minor "drag" or stiction" with the appropriate feeler gauge. (.20mm for exhaust valve, .10mm for intake valve).
The above went fine though I did have to enlist my loving wife's help to find Top Dead Center or TDC as it's a bit more difficult on an airhead than on my oilhead Maria. I can't use the screwdriver in the sparkplug hole trick with the airhead. After some trial/error, I believe got it to TDC on each side for adjustments.
I tore both gaskets when I removed the valve covers so I scraped off the remainder from the mating surfaces and headed to the beemer dealer for replacements. $5.90 each it turns out, I also replaced the spark plugs as well not only to have good baseline but also because the left side spark plug was fouled. I'll keep the old as emergency spares.
Once back home, I put on the gaskets and the valve covers, carefully torquing the center nut to 25nm and just snugging the two 10mm nuts on the sides. I fired up the engine for a bit to check for leaks and there were none. Good stuff.
I put all the tools aside and geared up, going for a 12 mile warm up ride for the carburetor sync operation that was to follow.
The yellow ruler is my manometer
Showing how the manometer tube ends fit onto the carburetors
The carb sync operation went fine, used the manometer again and found the level unsurprisingly far apart. I got them to almost be level with each other with some adjustment of the idle stop screw, and the left side cable end as well. Now they're close to level at idle and pull even vacuum under load. Just the way you want them to be.
Tomorrow, my first oil change on a airhead.
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