Husqvarna SM610 Valve Adjustment How-To

I looked long and hard for a how-to on an SM610 and never found one. So Garret and I decided to do one on our own. We didn't take as many pics as we wanted, but it should help out newbs who have never done it before.

There may be easier ways to do this, but Garret and I decided to tackle my bike the way the manual says to do so. No short cuts, nothing easy, just do it the slow way.

Total time was about 2.5 hours from start to finish and neither Garret nor I had ever done a single valve check in our life.

1) Take the bodywork off the bike. You should have something like this:

2) You need to take the radiators off to do this the long/safe way. That means you need to drain them too. Good time to run distilled water / water wetter anyway. First take the drain cap off, then pull the drain plug. It's located just below the header pipe. Prepare for coolant to go *everywhere*.

3) While the coolant drained, we cleaned up the area above the valves so we could actually work! Undo all your wiring stuff and zip-tie (or safety-wire) to the top of the frame.

4) Now remove these two breather hoses (I already took one off in this pic) to make more room.

5) Pop the dust covers off the radiators by hand. Be careful, they break easy. Then remove the fan. There's a bolt on the outside edge of the radiator (2 actually, but one came off with the bodywork). Remove it

6) Now remove the bolt that bolts the fan to the frame. It also runs through the coolant resevior (which you will need to remove later!). It has a 10mm nut on one side and an allen on the left side.

7) Pull the bottom radiator hoses to drain the rest of the coolant (as best as you can).

8) Start pulling the other hoses. The left side of the bike has a hose w/ a weird clamp. Remove this first and pull it up and out of the way. It connects to a large "T," don't worry -- you will not be removing the T from the frame.

9) Unbolt the radiators. There's very obvious 8mm bolts on the backside (toward the front of the bike) that have rubber bushings. Remove them and prepare to hold the radiator while you remove all other small hoses. Don't worry, they really only go to one spot so it's not hard to remember how they fit. You basically have a hose near the filler cap of the right radiator, the one off the water pump and the two lower hoses.

Get them out of the way....

10) Now you get to take out that resevoir that you unbolted earlier. Pull it out to the left side of the bike (where your clutch lever is... that's your left haha).

11) Pull the plug wire off and remove the spark plug. I used a regular socket as my spark plug socket was too thick to get down in the hole. Just be careful. Now is a good time to check your plug, you want a tan color on the tip.

12) Now you need to find Top Dead Center on the compression stroke (TDC-C). I used a straw (never felt comfortable enough to completely let go of it) to determine the height of the piston. Use this link to learn about TDC-C

13) Pull the valve covers off. There's two 8mm bolts and they are basically hand tight + a little more. They came off w/out using a socket, merely a regular wrench and light pressure.

14) Get your .002 feeler gauge and start adjusting your valves! You loosen the nut on the top of the rocker (see pic in step 13) and then feel between the very bottom of the rocker and the top of the valve (the flat part).

As you can see, I did not use proper feeler gauges. I suggest you buy some angled feeler gauges from Motion Pro. Since ours didn't work properly we had to adjust it as follows:

Use a .003 to determine if it's too loose (remember, too loose is better than too tight). If the .003 fit, I knew it wasn't to the spec of .002. We then loosened the lock nut, tightened the screw (flathead screwdriver on top of the lock nut) a tiny bit (by tiny bit, I mean less than 1mm of turn) until the .003 didn't fit.

We then used a .002 to check to make sure we weren't too tight. If the .002 slid in relatively easy, but not too easy, it was fine. If it was tight, almost as if it was fighting as you pulled it out, it was too tight. Remember as you tighten the lock-nut, it will adjust the valve. Be sure to check and recheck, before and after tightening.

15) Button everything up (reverse order) and replace the coolant. (I used 1.4qts of distilled water and 4 caps of water wetter).

Start it up and enjoy! I highly suggest those angled feeler gauges though. I'm going to be grabbing a pair of them (.002/.003) and redoing the valves just to make sure.

As you get more comfortable, you can do it without taking OFF the radiators.

Thanks for that write up and the pics! Well Done. ?

Congratulations - I put a link to this thread from the Important info sticky.

Didn't know what year bike so I put 2006/7.

?

Nice write-up. Good pics. You made it look really easy.

Congratulations - I put a link to this thread from the Important info sticky.

Didn't know what year bike so I put 2006/7.

?

Sorry, it's a 2006! Can't win 'em all you know? HAHAH!

Is it just my computer or are all of the pics just red X's now?

Gone.

And this is one of the few links I put in the important info sticky... now you know why all the other info & pics are from 1 photo account in the sticky.

And this is one of the few links I put in the important info sticky... now you know why all the other info & pics are from 1 photo account in the sticky.

Good have you back Coffee, maybe I was just going through some caffine withdrawels but the place hasn't been the same with out you.

And this is one of the few links I put in the important info sticky... now you know why all the other info & pics are from 1 photo account in the sticky.

I checked the photo properties and it looks like Antarius used the unversity's server to host the photos. ?

Hopefully, Antarius will repost the photos using service such as Photobucket. Better yet, it would be nice to just make it a pdf file.

Hey Coffee,

It's great to have you back. I'm new to Husky's and I've been learning a lot from your index page. Great stuff!

Good have you back Coffee, maybe I was just going through some caffine withdrawels but the place hasn't been the same with out you.

I checked the photo properties and it looks like Antarius used the unversity's server to host the photos. ?

Hopefully, Antarius will repost the photos using service such as Photobucket. Better yet, it would be nice to just make it a pdf file.

Hey Coffee,

It's great to have you back. I'm new to Husky's and I've been learning a lot from your index page. Great stuff!

?

My status for the next few weeks is tenuous - should be connected until Monday AM at least.

You guys did all the work for the sticky, I just put it together and maintain it.

You don’t have to drain the radiator on a 610 to check the valves. I have been using a tie-down strap hooked to the rear wheel to gently pull the radiators back out of the way.

That saves a lot of time over draining –refilling the radiator.

I figure that just over 1L of coolant is worth replacing often. BTW if you leave the radiator cap on, then undo the barrel coolant drain bolt, no coolant leaks out. Push a piece of hose hard up against the barrel with the other end in a bottle, then release the radiator cap. Coolant will run out and no mess.

I have also found that using BelRay thumper oil reduces the frequency of the time-consuming valve clearance job. Slower wear rate I suppose.

I contacted the Antarius and he pointed me to another site with the photos. I have created a word doc of the post, so hopefully Coffee can post the document.

I contacted the Antarius and he pointed me to another site with the photos. I have created a word doc of the post, so hopefully Coffee can post the document.

Problem with attachments is no one tends to click on them. The other problem is Max *.doc file size is 250kB... Let me know if it is under 250kB and you want me to post.

send it to me, ill host it.

ltalessi@mac.com

Thanks McInfantry, email sent.

Coffee, I could also email you the doc if you wanted to put the pics on the site you host all the pics for the Important Info. But that is some work on your part, and if you don't want to, I understand. ?

I contacted the Antarius and he pointed me to another site with the photos. I have created a word doc of the post, so hopefully Coffee can post the document.

I did some digging and I believe you are referring to this site:

http://www.bayarearidersforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3560393

It would be great if Coffee can post your document on ThumperTalk to ensure the information is not lost in the future.