Turned out I was turning the crankshaft the wrong way...
It now reaches the T mark as prescribed in the manual - "half a rotation" from when it moves upwards, and doesn't seem to be moving up anymore.
I'm unsure if I have damaged the engine cranking it the wrong way - from what I have read online, I have either ruined the tension, loosened the crank and/or rod bearings, or nothing at all. I estimate we would have at least made 20 rotations in the wrong direction.
Would you able able to advise on the effects of this?
The crank seems to "slip" as the inlet valve moves upwards, instead of maintaining a regular turn. Is this due to my mistake?
My valve clearance is way off - between 0.5 and 0.75 (my feeler gauges don't have all the dimensions) compared to the prescribed maximum of 0.13 and 0.22 for the inlet and exhaust valves. Will wait till I get my hands on a torque wrench before I adjust these.
If I have done more damage, perhaps its worth taking apart the whole thing? I will need to do an oil change now anyways as all the oil leaked out when I took the alternator cover off and hence won't be starting the bike up anytime soon? I am rather curious to see what its all about, but there does seem to be a push to not touch what isn't broken, or in my case, work "through" the issues and not open up the engine unless its the last resort?