Topic: CB550 Valve Adjustment question

[neurotoxin312]

So I'm outside adjusting my valves at the moment and I'm not sure about which mark to turn the engine over to before I loose up the tappets and use my feelers. Am I aligning the Timing mark directly over the "T" or the first or last tick marks on the "T" See the picture below for what I am seeing?

I just adjusted the tappets and when I started the engine now has a clicking noise, so I'm sure I did something wrong.

Also. How much resistance should I feel with the feelers when I am adjusting and when I remove them from an adjusted tappet?

[flybox1]

The correct feeler should slide out with minimal resistance.
I use one size bigger in feeler gauges  to test my accuracy.
If the larger test feeler DOES NOT FIT, its good, and I move on to the next valve...

[neurotoxin312]

What about which "T" mark to use? There are two ticks with the T in between (see first picture)

[CBGhia]

Use the one on the left.  The second is for F for Fire.

[Duanob]

One is T and one is F. Also make sure you are TDC for the #1 cylinder to start. Then follow the instructions in the manual for which valves to adjust. You have that page out of the manual don't you?

[neurotoxin312]

I'm following instructions here and for some reason my valve tappet on cylinder #2 is to too tight to get a feeler underneath it. This is when the timing marker is precisely on T. Any ideas what's going on here?

[neurotoxin312]

Ok think I got these tappets adjusted correctly. The bike sounds pretty good and the throttle is responsive.

The only thing is that I see some smoke coming from exhaust headers but I think it's because it rained last night.

Just to be on the safe side, is smoke from the headers a sign of a bad tappet adjustment?

[flybox1]

smoke from where, exactly?

wet pipe wrap?
oil burning off?
exhaust gaskets not crushed enough?

[neurotoxin312]

I'm thinking it was a little oil burning off and I'm sure some water settled/condensed in my MAC 4-1 exhaust. I ran it for a bit and it seemed like most of whatever was smoking burned off. The only thing is that there is just a little smoke/hotness coming from the engine, other than that everything seems OK.

I will be adjusting my points tomorrow & doing a carb sync. Hopefully this should help.

[eigenvector]

Adjusted correctly...  Your mileage may vary as to what that means, but I personally err on the side of loose.
You aren't imagining things either - adjusting the valves the first few times really is a difficult task.  Stick a feeler gauge in a vice, bend it 90 deg, now you have a Honda feeler gauge for the valves and it's really easy to do.

[eigenvector]

The smoke coming from the bike is somewhat normal.  After a hard ride my bike will produce thin puffs of smoke from the transmission - which I assume comes from the oil pan.  It's getting hot and there's no coolant to cool it off with other than the air.
It only matters when the smoking is persistent or thick enough to notice easily.