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V7c Valve Clearance

The latest I have seen from Guzzi - which is to say on the sticker on the aft end of the gas tank - is .13 to .17mm intake, .18 - .22mm exhaust; IE .15mm and .20mm is you pick the number in the middle of the range. That's .005-.006" and .007 - .008"

The old standard was .10 - .15 intake, .15 - .20 exhaust, so the new standard is a bit looser than that. Not much of a change really - heck, if you set the valve lash on almost any bike to .10mm intake and .15mm exhaust you'll probably be right enough; it's a fairly common standard; my '66 305 Superhawk has the same clearance, for example.
 
Is there a guide or a how to, or maybe some pictures about what's involved in getting to the valves, etc?
 
spadefoot said:
Is there a guide or a how to, or maybe some pictures about what's involved in getting to the valves, etc?

Download the service manual and the parts manual from the downloads section. Once you have the valve cover off, you are staring at the valve adjusters. If you aren't sure how to get the valve covers off, get some instruction on valve adjustment from someone that has done it before. It isn't rocket science, but you have to be careful about what you are doing.
 
Good morning. I know this is a bit old thread. This may be the reason I can hear a bit of tappet noise on my new 2016 Stone.

The latest I have seen from Guzzi - which is to say on the sticker on the aft end of the gas tank - is .13 to .17mm intake, .18 - .22mm exhaust; IE .15mm and .20mm is you pick the number in the middle of the range. That's .005-.006" and .007 - .008"

The old standard was .10 - .15 intake, .15 - .20 exhaust, so the new standard is a bit looser than that. Not much of a change really - heck, if you set the valve lash on almost any bike to .10mm intake and .15mm exhaust you'll probably be right enough; it's a fairly common standard; my '66 305 Superhawk has the same clearance, for example.
 

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Good morning. I know this is a bit old thread. This may be the reason I can hear a bit of tappet noise on my new 2016 Stone.

Not sure I get what you're saying?

What's the reason? That your bike is adjusted to spec?

Mine's set to 6&8 and you can hear a little tapping till she warms... Then butter smooth and quiet.

Been that way for 4 years/15k miles....
 
Good afternoon. Thanks for the reply.
It may be me not use to engine sounds. Especially after riding the wing. Thanks to this thread in ready to tackle the valve adjustment when required.
Not sure I get what you're saying?

What's the reason? That your bike is adjusted to spec?

Mine's set to 6&8 and you can hear a little tapping till she warms... Then butter smooth and quiet.

Been that way for 4 years/15k miles....
 
Good afternoon. Thanks for the reply.
It may be me not use to engine sounds. Especially after riding the wing. Thanks to this thread in ready to tackle the valve adjustment when required.

Sounds like Wings are shim/bucket adjusters with very long intervals. I'd expect them to be almost as quiet as hydraulic lifters.

But good old fashioned locknut/threaded adjusters tend to have a bit more play. And as an engineer friend of mine used to say "a tappy valve is a happy valve" well, at least it's not about to burn and drop.
 
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I think all Guzzis have a bit of tappet noise when they are properly adjusted. I would just add one comment about clearances: I was taught many years ago to check that the next size up feeler gauge will not enter the gap. So after carefully setting the exhaust valve at .008", I check that a .009" feeler will not enter the gap. If it won't then all is well.
It was a good comment about taking the spark plugs out!!!
 
Great advice. And that's how I do it on the tu250. I'm looking forward to the guzzi not to take the tank off to do anything.
 
I recently performed my own valve adjustment on my 2015 V7 Stone during a class at Moto Guild. I followed the recommended specs and there's now a loud "tapping" noise happening. Reading through this thread it seems like this is "normal" but I'm curious if having too much clearance can be bad and what the symptoms beyond the "tapping" noise may be?
 
I recently performed my own valve adjustment on my 2015 V7 Stone during a class at Moto Guild. I followed the recommended specs and there's now a loud "tapping" noise happening. Reading through this thread it seems like this is "normal" but I'm curious if having too much clearance can be bad and what the symptoms beyond the "tapping" noise may be?

Too much clearance isn't a problem, you won't burn a valve. A too tight valve is a problem. All to much clearance will do is decrease valve open duration, so maybe a slight drop in performance, but not something you could probably detect.
 
you don't say how many miles or if the first 600 check was done with the retorque or what you gapped them at. but if you had to loosen and not tighten you didn't have it on TDC or at least the compression TDC.
 
The problem with terms like "loud" is that it's too subjective. We really have no way of telling if loud to you is normal to Guzzi or if you have a problem.

I'd characterize normal as noticeable, especially cold, or maybe gentle when warmed. But those are subjective too.
 
I see this question of correct valve clearances for the V7III motor has left a bit of ambiguity. I don't like ambiguity when it comes to adjusting the valves on my engine, so I sent a note to a friend in Italy who has access to the engineering department inside Moto Guzzi. His response:

On Feb 11, 2018, at 6:37 AM, Fabio A. wrote:

straight from the mouth of the guy which was involved in the development
at the engine bench: .10/.15

I've known Fabio for twenty plus years. When he tells me something, I can count on it as being definitive without question. So I'm going to use 0.10mm (.004") Intake and 0.15mm (.006") Exhaust valve clearances as my reference spec for adjusting V7III valve clearances.

enjoy,
G
 
hmm, no. I don't think that's a reasonable conclusion.

Valve clearances are a matter of the expected expansion and change of the materials from cold to hot as well as the acceleration/deceleration ramps built into the camshaft to handle moving the pieces with reasonable wear characteristics. Guzzi has used .10/.15 in the past on other hemi head motors with certain cams, and larger clearances on others, depending upon a lot of different factors.

The head/cam/etc of the 2v small block engines have been pretty consistent since they were introduced back in the early 1970s. All Heron head motorswith a very simple two-valve design. The V7III and V9 motors are a departure in the 2v design: their valve gear geometry is much more akin to the big block motors. Given their power output, for the engine type, they have a fairly high performance cam in them ... the new valve train geometry simply allows Guzzi to run a slightly tighter cold clearance, and the ramps on the cam have been designed to suit that much as they are on the big block motors with similar geometry.

To me, the change is minor ... the discrepancy in the documentation simply means that the editor who did the copyedit on the sticker was not the same as the editor who did the copyedit on the service manual: he/she didn't realize there'd been a change to the clearance spec that needed to be reflected on the emissions control sticker. The legal requirements and precise verbiage required for that was probably foremost in their minds, not the technical detail. That's all. The writer and editor who did the service manual had the technical details foremost in their mind.

I think I can make this conjecture with some credibility because writing detailed long-form technical documentation, AND in-box EULA pieces to satisfy legal requirements, were bits and pieces of the last five years of my career in high tech. My mindset when writing these very different types of technical documentation, and the people I had to coordinate with to do it, was very different between them and involved almost wholly different editorial teams in the process. :D
 
Note, I did say 20th not 21st century.

LOL! It couldn't be anything but the 20th century, since Moto Guzzi didn't exist before then. :)

Oh, I understand what you're getting at. But in reality, valve clearances haven't changed since the dawn of motorcycle engine time. By the time motorcycle engines existed, the materials science available was such that clearances in this range were already in use. What a specific engine required has had more to do with the specific acceleration ramp on the cams that the engineers defined than anything else, for whatever end they were looking to achieve (noise control, valve cooling, etc).
 
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