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Re: [ST] Crank story continues...



Neil Lindsey wrote:

first of all, you don't have to be factory-authorized to work on a
Triumph (hell, many Triumph dealer mechanics are not factory-authorized)

Yeah, but the dealer has to have the kit. So if he took the bike to a dealer, the tech should have had access to it.


secondly, you gotta admit -- for the mechanic that doesn't have the
tool, the job probably IS easier

If the tech does not have the tool, then it is likely he hasn't been working on too many Triumphs, so I would probably do the job myself or find someone with more Triumph experience. The tool is not that expensive. And I believe third party version exist.


thirdly, it can probably be argued that once you have made your
measurements and know which shims need to be replaced, it might actually
be easier to remove the camshafts and change the shims all at once
rather than one at a time (depends probably on how many shims need
replacing)

No, after doing the valves on my ST and playing with cams on other vehicles I can guarantee you that the tool will cut the time in half, even if you have to replace every shim. Remember to pull the cams you have to loosen the chain, remove all the caps, carefully lay out all of the bearings, can't mix'n match those puppies, then carefully snake the cams out (some bikes are worse than others, depends on where the chain is), the reversal adds in making sure that you did not screw up the timing. Brian D. and I spend 2 or 3 hours doing that last part on his Subi when he had to remove on of the heads.


For that matter, re-tourqing the caps would take as long as it took me to use the tool to replace two of the shims (IIRC 3 shims, all exhaust, 2 one cylinder # 1)

Kinda like, I would not take my truck to a tire shop that only statically balanced the tires. Yeah, might get a slightly better job done, but watching and paying for someone dork around with 265/75R16's mounted on rims for a couple hours would not be worth it. Throwing them on the spin balancer for 20 seconds is a lot more reasonable.

YMMV of course. As an engineer I tend to optimize (as I've been told), and I just call'em the way I see them.

cheers,
Tom


-- Thomas Emberson


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