I'm goin' in....

[Rick]

Ok, I've been watching this forum and the discussion on valve adjustments. My 2007 has just over 7000 miles (about 4000 from me in the past several months), and although the previous owner said he'd done all the scheduled maintenance, I don't know for sure if he had the valves adjusted or not. So, given that, I've decided to take this on myself, and hopefully take care of a couple other things while the bike is apart.

The other issues are: tube has come loose from petcock so bike is essentially always on reserve setting, AND, I have a very slow oil leak that I'm reasonably certain is coming from the valve cover area.

SO - given this info, I have a couple of questions for anyone who cares to answer. I understand that some of this might be in the manual (which I refer to on a regular basis, as I have done a fair amount of work on this bike already), so if that is the case, just say so and I'll try (again) to find it

1. do you have to drain the gas tank before removing it, and if so, how?
2. do you have the have the special valve adjustment wrench in order to adjust the valves? The reason I ask is that the guy at Cycle Gear (who says he used to be a mechanic), told me that the wrench was probably not necessary, that I could probably do it with a box end wrench and a flathead screwdriver
3. Are the valve cover bolts obvious, or is it cylinder head bolts I'm looking for? I've read on multiple locations on this forum that sometimes a minor oil leak might just require torquing down the bolts, but I am not exactly sure what bolts that I am looking for.

Any other input is welcome. I am not a mechanic but I am very comfortable working on cars/bikes, etc if I have good instructions

Thanks