Alignment Holes?

I recently took the valve cover off of my 82 xj650 maxim to measure my valve clearances, and noticed some unknown holes in the head and valve cover. The gasket doesn't go around the holes, so I'm assuming dowels are suppose to go there for alignment. Can anyone verify this? The holes are on the intake side of the head next to the most right, inside bolt, and left most inside bolt. After I torqued the valve cover down I could see a gap where these holes are which is my main concern.

 

Howdy Cap'n, I don't think you need to worry about those holes, they were probably holes that were threaded for a non-YICS valve cover. Yamaha used the molds from earlier models to save money and they were modified to crank out the newer heads.

 

YICS motor, right?

We're talking about that little rounded protrusion on the head/valve cover; in this pic it's DIRECTLY above the spark plug boot?




And we can see it in this pic, directly under (and partially covered by) the feeler gauge; except on the 550 (which this is) they aren't drilled/tapped:




I don't know what the heck those were for. As you can see, on the 550 YICS head, they were never drilled/tapped, but the "bump" on the head and corresponding one on the valve cover are there; and the gasket doesn't seem to care (there's an "ungasketed gap.")

If those are what you're talking about, don't worry about it.

 

Hey Fitz, I think if you look at a non YICS cover you may find that the bolt holes line up to those bumps.

 

Hey Steve, I did and they don't. (Got one in the stable.)

As a matter of fact, my non-YICS 650 has the SAME bumps, and they do not line up with the cover bolt holes. Nor would they line up with a YICS cover. They're just as extraneous on that motor too, with corresponding "bumps" on the cover and the gasket just passes them by. Plus the 550s (as in the pics above) didn't come in a non-YICS version.

That ain't it.

 

I was going by the hole shown in the drawing.

 

Yep, those holes (or on the 550, blank casting nubs.) The ones in the drawing (which is from the fiche.) Got 'em on both YICS and non-YICS motors, and they are NOT for either "flavor" of cover, even if you mismatch covers.

 

That's the one! Finally got her started again this week after a lot of trouble with the carbs. (Those darn starter jets!). All was fine when I started and ran it; no oil squirting all over the garage. Thanks for all the responses!