Yamaha 1300 Tourer - The Yamaha 1300 Tourer Fansite

When I bought my first bike at age fourteen, I was a little apprehensive about doing my own mechanics work, but after two or three trips to the dealer, getting fleeced, and not seeing any improvement in the way my bike ran, I became quickly dis-enchanted with dealer "mechanics". I had a little experience helping my Dad with the '56 ford, keeping it in tune, and properly adjusted, and decided to put that knowledge to use on my bike. I learned quite a lot from that first bike experience. I have never had a bike back at the dealer, or allowed anyone else work on my bikes since.
Now, I may be a bit of a cynic, but the idea of taking a bike in for 600 mile service to have the valves adjusted, when the full break-in period is 1,000 miles sounds a bit ludicrous. Changing the oil and filter, checking fasteners and making the usual simple external adjustments at 600 miles is a good idea. Adjusting valves, that admittedly aren't fully broken in yet, just isn't necessary. Now if you can detect a little tappet noise, and it is bothersome, then by all means have the clearances checked. However, loose tappets, unless they are way loose, don't present any problem. It's the tight ones that are more of a concern, especially if they are tight enough to keep the valves from seating tightly, which will allow hot combustion gasses to escape under high pressure, and cause both the valve and valve seat to erode. If you are following the break-in guidelines, most importantly, the part about avoiding full throttle for the first 1,000 miles, you should be perfectly safe going 1,000 miles before the first valve adjustment. In my case, my bike went 1,050 miles before I got around to checking the valve clearances. All of the clearances were within factory specs. (These can be found on a sticker on the fender under the seat). I did re-adjust them though, to the higher side of the tolerance, because a little more clearance is safer. The second time I checked clearances was at 4,000 miles. At that point, the clearances had not changed enough to worry about. I don't think I will check them again for another 8-10K miles. The most difficult part of the valve adjust is getting down to the inspection covers, and once you are there, you will be working with limited access. It does require that you remove the two radiator coolant hoses that are routed over the heads. Then, you must move or remove any other hoses or wiring that restrict access, but nothing major. Both valves on each rocker arm should be gauged and adjusted at the same time for a more accurate adjustment, since gauging one side at a time could cause the rocker arm to twist slightly on it's bearing surface with the rocker arm shaft. Motion pro makes a really good little valve adjusting tool set that includes 3 locknut socket wrenches, and 3 adjuster sockets that fit down inside the locknut sockets. You can buy offset feeler gages, but they are a little pricey. I made my own by buying 2 sets of straight feeler gages, taking out the leaves that I needed, cut off the end with the hole in it to about 3/4"-1" long, leaving the cut end flat. Cut the sides to a slight taper for a little more room if you desire, then de-burr all of the cuts with a sharpening stone. Make sure you remove all of the grit left by the stone before using. Then I made handles by inserting an 1-1/2" long 8-32 round head machine screw through a washer, the blade, another washer, then a nut. This allows you to insert the feeler gage under the end of the tappet at 90 degrees without performing unnatural gymnastics. If you are mechanically inclined and have a little experience working on bikes, doing a valve adjust on the 1300 really isn't too difficult. It can be done in about 3 hours, and judging by the other comments, can save you a chunk of change. If you don’t have any experience wrenching your own bike, ask a mechanic friend to help you through the first time. When you do it yourself, you are assured the best job possible.