I was looking for some feedback about valve adjusting. My '06 636 has about 3000 miles on it now. I noticed a slight tapping coming from the valve train before my oil change. I switched to full synthetic and can now hear the tapping very clearly. How much valve tap is too much (ie causing damage to the engine)? I can tell that it is only one of the vavles tapping due to the frequency of the noise. Also, how much does the average valve adjustment cost to have done? How much does it cost to do it yourself? Is it difficult to do yourself? Must the engine oil be changed after doing a valve adjustment? If so, I'm going to be really pissed, because I just dropped 80 bucks worth of oil in that thing. Thanks.

 

you should not need a valve adjustment until around 15,000 mi.
make sure you are running the right weight oil. I use 10w40 for my area, and probably most others.

the case on my bike says 4 qts for a change and 4.2 qts empty. I did the 4 qts and heard my valves a little more than i wanted to so i dumped in anothe .2 qts to get the 4.2 qts and its alot quiter. if your still concerned ask one of the techs at the dealor to take a listen.

 

okay I heard that the timing chain tensioner on the 6R's goes out my husband was also hearing a noise and that what we were told. Just ask someone I am not an expert on that and my husbands is a 2003 so it could just be that year. Just a thought.

 

true on that the cam chain tensioner goes out pretty early on most bikes it did on my CBR600 so I replaced it with an ape manual cct and the noise was gone only $50 and its better for your bike!!

 

Yeah, I did a little research about the issue. The dealer told me that the cam chain on the kawi's is renown for tapping noise, so it is unlikely my valves are out of adjustment. The tapping is more noticable at low RPM because the auto-tensioner is over-compensating and backing off too much, causing a snap load on the chain. I did a little more reseach and found that all kawi race engines are put through rigorous testing to ensure the best valve clearances possible before leaving the factory (more so than any other engine builder). So this makes it even more unlikely that the valves are tapping.

I think I am going to switch to a manual tensioner and see if that fixes the problem. But I won't be doing it for at least 3000 more miles so I can get some worth out of the oil I just threw in there. Anyone know how often a manual tensioner needs to be checked and how tight the chain should be? Thanks.

 

My chain is slapping like crazy also. I'll have to get a manual adjuster either from Kawasaki or APE too.

 

A person would be surprised on how far off factory specs are on valves.
But yes, the tensioner, just reset it. See how that goes.