GoldWing 50K Service

Sandy drove me to RL Equipment in Verner to pick up the bike.  I had dropped it off a few days ago to have the 50,000 kilometer service done.  This included checking the valves, replacing the spark pugs and a few other tasks.  The think I was most interested in was the valve check.  The GL1800 uses bucket and shim valve adjustment instead of the self-adjusting hydraulic lifters found on Wings between '84 and '00 or the adjustable rockers found on the earliest models.

This is the fifth time I have had the valves checked and I have been waiting for one of them to require adjusting.  After all, our concerns about going away from the relatively maintenance free hydraulic lash adjusters was the potential for requiring regular adjusting.  Our fears appear to have been unfounded.  Once again, all valves were within specifications.  That makes 225,000 kilometers with no need to change anything.  It did possibly help that I put some Seafoam in the tank and rode the 45 miles to Verner in 3rd and 4th gear as recommended by Jim the Service Manager to make sure there wasn't a build-up of carbon under the valves which could have led to incorrect measurements.  In any case, I am a happy camper and Pogo is ready for another 50K.

As a passing point of interest, for those who remember the great oil mystery last month, Jim said Marc thinks he might have changed the oil when the bike was in for its tire change in August.  That would be the answer I suspected because, great as this bike is, it doesn't change its own oil.