So, here are the promised details for anyone interested...
Results:
I. Taking a valve cover off was a PITA as expected. I got no love until I removed the cowling brackets in the front, the box on top of the valve cover (don't know what it's for) and moved the carbs back. Afterwards, when I removed the spark plug gaskets, sliding the cover in and out became possible with the carbs back in place. Lesson learned: to do the least amount of work when removing the cover, the steps needed would be to remove the cowling brackets, the box that's bolted onto the top of the cover, the pair box and move all of the wires out of the way. Then move the cover up and remove the sparc plug gaskets. Of course having spairs is a MUST if you are going to take this approach. The cover should then slide out to the side with relative ease. Also, I tried both moving the rear wheel and using the signal generator to turn the engine - the latter was much easier. IMO, well worth the cost of the extra gasket.
Some of the steps to avoid commont pitfalls I saw in other posts:
1. I took care to remove the dowels in the valve cover before doing anything to make sure that they didn't fall anywhere.
2. I cleaned the bolts with brake cleaner before torquing them back
3. I used a lot of paper towels (Bounty rules) to plug any holes where things could fall.
4. I marked all the wires with masking tape. I also used masking tape to cover small holes, hold bolts in place, etc. Plus I had a lot of plastic cups for parts.
5. I bought all the spare gaskets/washers. Ended up using all of them. Maybe I didn't have to, but I felt safer doing it. I'd rather spend extra 50 bucks on parts now than deal with potential problems later. But then again, my bike is 4 years old, so I figured it was worth the money to replace some old rubber.
II. When I first started the bike it would idle fine, and would respond to the choke in the usual way, but then it would die if I tried to move the throttle. I let it idle for a little bit and adjusted the idle screw. After some playing the throttle response came back. After I synced up the carbs, the bike revved beautifully into 8000K range, after which my neighbours started screaming at me so I had to stop :) I haven't started the bike from cold yet, I hope the problem won't manifest itself anymore.
III. The engine seems quieter when it idles and the tapping sound that the valves make is more pronounced. I used to hear high pitched metallic noise before, like shaking a lot of pennies in a jar and that seems to be gone. The bike also used to make popping sounds (exhaust) once in a while, that's also gone - I guess that's because the old plugs were in a pretty bad shape. Overall, it seems like the engine sound is lower now than it used to be. Or maybe I am imagining it... But it's definitely much smoother.
I am keeping my fingers crossed until I take the bike for a ride, but so far everything looks good. Thanks everyone for your help.
Topic: Anybody close to NYC can do valve adjust? (Read 5835 times)