2017 Africa Twin Valve Clearance Check

The 24,000 kilometer service for the first generation Africa Twin involves checking the valve clearances. It sounds like a big job, but it's not too bad. At this point I am practiced enough that I can get access to the valve train in around 1.5 hours, after which it's easy to check.

The Africa Twin has a somewhat unique valve train for being a flagship model adventure bike. Rather than using a double over head cam like most big bikes, it uses a single camshaft over the intake valves only, using a typical shim-over-bucket type adjustment. The exhaust valves are driven off of rockers that ride on that same single camshaft using 4 very nice cam follower bearings. The exhaust rockers feature similar adjustment screws that you'd see on a bike from many a yester-year. I think this is a pretty clever design. In most engines, the exhaust valve seats tend to wear and recede faster than the intake valve seats. It seems Honda left easy adjustability for the valves where you would expect there to need adjustment, and saved space on the intake valves where you typically don't ever need to adjust them.

On my specimen after 24,000km the valve clearances were well within spec. At 45,000 when I sold the bike, the exhaust valve clearance had only shrunk by 0.0005". It seems this will be a very long lived engine with little actual adjustment needed. I wouldn't be surprised if we see later models start adopting 48,000 km valve clearance check intervals like we see in many automotive engines.

There is a trick to the front side fairing pieces: Slide them forwards! If you pry them sideways away from the bike you will break the forward two pins off. Pop the rear of the fairing loose from the tank, and push the fairing forwards to pop the front pins out of the front grommets.

Then the tank and air box need to come off. Take note of the drain tubes running from the left and right rear bottom corners of the air box, you'll need to reattach them when you put this all back together. They can be hard to see and can be easily missed.