Does anybody adjust their own valves? My bike is a 94 with 31k on it and sometimes when it starts up it'll rattle for 10 to 15 seconds quite loudly before it stops. The rattling can be eliminated by revving it up a few times. So I take this as something needing more oil pressure to get working right, possibly the CCT?
anyway, I figured what I would do is adjust the valves because I'm fairly certain its never been done and then if the rattling continues put in the manual cct. All I can find on the internet for shim kits are like $70 and that seems like a lot. Am I missing something here? Is there anyone here who's adjusted their own valves and can maybe point me to a cheap kit? I haven't gone down to the stealership yet, but I figure if they charge $13 for an oil filter a shim kit is going to be fairly ridiculous.

 

i believe that's the cam chain running dry. it goes away after a few seconds once its all lubed up, mine does it as well. i have about 36,7xx on my bike.

 

$70 for a shim kit isn't that bad. It's stupid that you just can't order the shims you would need, but that's the way life works. It doesn't sound like it's your valves anyway. Valves that are out of spec will click all the time.

 

I shimmed my own valves. I had it apart. Measured what shims I would need - twice. And ordered just the ones I needed. It was cheap. By the way, I switched some of the old shims around and put some new ones in. Only one was out of spec slightly, but now they are all at '0' spec.

 

If the shims are worn, and you can reuse them somewhere else, you can flip them over to get a fresh machined side. Measure them with a micrometer to make sure they're within spec. Your problem doesn't sound like a valve adjustment problem though. If it's noisy at first, then quiets down, you have a CCT problem. Don't mess with the Honda CCT. Get an adjustable. I had the same problem, bought a new Honda CCT, and the problem came back in a week. Bought an adjustable CCT, got the cam chain tensioned right, and there are no problems. This problem is due to stretching of the cam chain.... A very costly repair, or if you do it yourself, you're looking at 5 hours (for an experienced mechanic). If you start to hear valve tapping, constantly, then you should shim your valves.

 

When you say 5 hours are you talking about the chain tensioner, or replacement of the chain itself? I keep reading that the tensioner is a fairly easy thing to do and I was going to give it a shot since mine rattles like hell when I start it back up after letting it site for 10 minutes or so after it's hot.

 

No the tensioner is about a 20 minute job. The cam chain is a 5 hour job.