My Hot engine valve check....LIKE 200i

[Stig / Major Tom]

(reprised from a post in 2014) ) (have moved on from Seattle's Best)

Would appreciate any recommendations or corrections to this.   Stig

Going to check my valve lash on my day off, tomorrow...but decided to do the tear down as soon as I got home this evening....on a hot engine. (sort of-- it is 33degrees F out there )
Just for the heck of it I checked the valve gap on the hot engine.
Tomorrow I will check it again when the engine is cold (@30 degrees F). The valves are to be checked only on a cold engine. (over night is best) So, if you take your scooter in to the dealer for service and a valve adjustment is part of the order - they should not give it back to you in an hour or two!
For those who'd like a refresher...or have yet to check your valves, I took some pictures:
Remove seat bucket (w/seat attached to it!)
Remove battery cover and cover with heavy cloth.
Remove center cover to expose valve cover.
(Disconnect spark plug cap, for safety.)
Remove plug on fan cover to expose timing mark ("T" and a line, nearby)
Remove rubber vacuum line from valve cover.
Remove four 10mm bolts on valve cover (if you forget where they went - match bolt length to casting depth on the valve cover)
Rotate engine clock-wise with a 14mm socket on white nylon fan nut (look in there, you'll see it...I do not remove the spark plug to make it easier to turn engine over: engine is not that powerful and I don't like re-threading that little plug too many times, to avoid cross-threading it)
Align "T" with the notch and align two hash lines on chain sprocket with edge of engine ...if correct you can grab the adjustment nuts and feel slight movement when you pull/push them. If NO movement...rotate engine 360 again and try again. Do not adjust anything if you do not feel a bit of movement in each valve adjusting nut because you have not found top-dead-center, necessary to adjust the valve lash.

When I checked the valves on this hot engine I got .oo5 on the intake and .oo4 on the exhaust valve. The correct setting is .oo4 inches - or 0.10 mm
Insert feeler gauge blade. Loosen the lock nut then turn center screw to get proper light drag on the blade. Snug lock nut, if still good - do the other valve. Rotate engine to TDC and check them both again.
I reuse the valve cover gasket if it looks good and add a small bit of heavier gear oil to the moving parts before replacing the cover. Tighten bolts gently in a X pattern...do not overtighten these alloy parts. Just snug.
Replace vacuum rubber hose onto valve cover.
Start the engine after replacing plug cap. Check for leaks around the valve cover...if good- - button it up. (replace center cover, battery cover and seat bucket)
























I use 4 feeler blades: .oo4"  ,+ and - , and use them to check my valves. If the .oo5 fits....I keep adjusting until only the .oo4 fits, etc.
Stig

[CROSSBOLT]

THIS is the way service manuals should be written!

[hypophthalmus]

Why is everything so clean?

[CROSSBOLT]

Why is everything so clean?

Stig always downplays this sparkling cleanliness but I have video of him armed with a tooth brush and bore patches DAILY scrubbing everything......

[fishcutter44]

Excellent tutorial with photos, thanks Stig!

[vespbretta]

Happy easter weekend!
Yes, fascinating tutorial. Just perfect as always. 
With this everybody should be able to check and adjust the valve lash easily and correctly.
And we now know why the human race is born with two hands only. One for the coffee cup and another for the dust rag.... 

The most interesting encounter I found in this tutorial was, that obviously the valve lash HOT is the SAME as COLD. Hmmmm, interesting. Equal expansion of all parts. Or does it vary trouhout the temperature ranges from cold to hot?
Anyway, it leads me to the assumption, that I could set the valve lash next time a little bit narrower than 0.12mm or 0.005inches. Maybe thats the reason why the official valve lash range from kymco is 0.06mm plus/minus 0.02mm (according to the sticker on the handle bar). Not sure, but maybe I really should go back at least to 0.004inches or even less to avoid ticking.

What do you think? Valve lash is always kind of a compromise. But what would be the best in your opinions?

[Stig / Major Tom]

This pasted from Vespa forum.....

 I have a 2018 Piaggio LIBERTY 150 with the 3V "i-GET" air-cooled engine.
The owner's manual, the down-loadable LIBERTY 150 service manual and the youtube video of Robot checking the valves on the 3V engine - ALL state that the valve lash is to be adjusted to 0.08mm.

The problem I  had was that the underseat service label on the scooter does not agree--- the label states that the valves are to be set at 0.10mm.

I placed a phone call to Piaggio USA, in NYC. I was put through to speak with an Italian speaking engineer. He did some checking over a 2-day period - and he came back with this information: "0.08 is old information - the label on the new scooters are correct with the new specification of 0.10mm. Go by the label."
(I noted that the owner's manual was printed in July , 2016; my scooter was produced in May, 2017))

He mentioned that a variation of +/- 0.02 is permissible - but we agreed that if starting with the wrong specs of 0.08mm, one could end up with valves at 0.06 - and that is somewhat tighter than the correct 0.10mm!

So, short answer: "Go by the label on the scooter."
Which is 0.10mm on my particular 2018 Liberty 150 3V.
It is nice to have a way to check things - dealer tech. told me they have no info on servicing these new scoots as yet..
When setting our valve lash - most of us want to get it as close as possible."
                                         ___________________
FYI, "ROBOT" is the famous Vespa mechanic of youtube fame, based in SoCal.



Stig

[vespbretta]

Well yes, I personally also consider the 0,10mm a convenient everywhere and everytime working number for valve clearance. 
I just wondered why Kymco would give a way tighter number on their tech specs label on the backside of the handlebar of the us-models. 0.06mm plus/minus 0.02mm
Huhhh, that might be a pretty tight one....I am not really willing to try that on my scooter.

See this post and picture of one of our forum members
http://www.kymcoforum.com/index.php?topic=24057.0

But as you correctly stated, I also understand the valve clearance as kind of a tolerance thing within certain limits. It´s not 100% perfect rocket science.
So probaby everything between 0.08mm and 0.15mm should be fine and not causing any problems.
Altough the perfect valve clearance would be close to zero (0) - but only in theory. 

And we will never get consistent and correct numbers from Kymco anyway.

[Stig / Major Tom]

Yeah, I'm not going any smaller than .10mm.
I was holding a .06mm and a .04mm blade last night....and imagining my valve stems with that much clearance. !!
Maybe KYMCO needed that for the EPA import pollution check?
And maybe I'd squeeze another 1/4 HP out at .06mm.....but that setting is too scary.

First time I fired up my LIKE200I I noticed that it smelled worse than any engine I'd owned in a long time. Pollution coming out the muffler. That improved some with age. 
My scoot idles strongly in traffic, starts quickly, doesn't stumble when I roll quickly off the throttle.....all good signs to me that the valves are not unhappy at .10mm.

Interesting that Piaggio went with bigger gaps on their sticker.

Stig
 

[Stig / Major Tom]

As to the continued inaccuracies found in KYMCO owner's manuals, on their powersports websites and in press releases.......
It would be nice if they'd let one of their experienced mechanics sit at a table with a red pen, a donut and a pot of coffee, and let him proofread everything first.
He'd be happy to sit in air-conditioning. .....and KYMCO would stop embarrassing themselves.
Stig

[CROSSBOLT]

I volunteered to do exactly what you suggested, Stig! Last year and the year before that. To Kymco US at least. Ignored. I even said I would bring my own coffee and donut. Ignored.