Do it yourself satisfaction
600 for a service, albeit a 24,000-mile valve service, sounded a bit rich. After all, ‘how hard can it be?’ Actually quite hard, but a genuine thrill
THERE’S A PECULIAR JOY to riding round on a bike you’ve had in bits. For me there’s a layer of wonder added to all the other riding emotions. Wonder that I’ve managed not to wreck what was, before I started the 24,000-mile valve service, a fully functional 20-valve, 140bhp motorcycle engine. Wonder that each of those exhaust shims the size of this ‘O’ that I fitted are now thrashing up and down at 83 times a second getting the valve timing right each time. Wonder that the dozens of electrical connectors, fuel and cooling hoses that I re-connected while looking at a photo on my phone and thinking ‘well, this looks like it must go here,’ are all pumping the right stuff to the right place. Accelerating from 6000rpm to the redline has never felt so good. Then there’s the actual process of doing the job, which was fascinating and challenging in equal measure (I’d never adjusted valve clearances before). But the process was much more difficult than I imagined because I didn’t really consider what has to happen to get to the valves. That was 90% of the job – tank off, airbox off, throttle bodies off, radiator off, coolant reservoir off, cylinder head off, camshafts off… and only then can you change the shims. That last part took under an hour, then it took another five putting it all back together. The reason I started the process in the first place was that I baulked at a Yamaha service quote of £600, but having done it, it now seems like remarkable value. Obviously a professional mechanic will work at four times my top speed, but it’s still a very full day’s work and the parts you replace are certainly not cheap (spark plugs, cylinder head gasket, shims, oil, filter and coolant came to a total of £115). But in the end it wasn’t the money I saved that gave the most satisfaction. It was all the little victories – getting the shim sums spot on, routing the throttle cables correctly, finding the bolt that pinged across the garage. And all done in solitary, blissful, peace. There’s another advantage of DIY servicing – it’s cheaper than therapy. And divorce.