No clearance with smallest shim

[facepants]

Using a 2.15mm shim (the smallest one suzuki sells according to the haynes manual) I have no valve clearance on one of my valves.

What can I do in this situation? 

Is there a place to buy shims smaller than 2.15mm or should I have a machine shop grind down some of my other shims?

[elec]

Hi,

I'm no expert but my first guess would be that your valves have either worn out or "burned away". And most probably you should get new valves and (dont know the right word for it in english) re hone? your new valves and their.. (again not sure about the correct word) nests.
If thats the case then its certainly not the work that I would suggest to do yourself. I think that some bike shop handles it probably better. As it includes pulling the engine apart quite alot and later putting it back together and setting the chain so that the timings would be in place is somewhat painful. Also camshaft bolts need to be fixed at correct force or you'll be in trouble.

[facepants]

I actually just had a valve job done.

[elec]

I actually just had a valve job done.

In that case, if its not too long ago, I think its best to go to where you had your valve job done and ask them nicely "wtf".

[dgyver]

Sounds like they cut the seats a little deaper and now the valves are too long.

With one of the heads I rebuillt, I ground the ends of the valves to make them shorter. This put them into the range of the shims that I have.

I would not grind the shims thinner. You risk breaking them.

[gsJack]

My 97 GS had one exhaust valve down to the min 215 shim and I was going to get a couple shims ground down for future adjustments when the bike was totalled and I parked it with about 80k miles on it.

In order to grind off the end of the valves like suggested it will be necessary to pull the head and take it apart to do it right.  I was going to make shims down to 2 mm thick, 210, 205, and 200 thick.  I don't know how likely it is they will break, but the possibility of throwing a shim at high rpm would be increased with the thinner shims.

Since I rarely if ever go above about 9k rpm, I would go ahead and do this if I wanted to put the bike back in service due to something happening to the 02 GS and would not be too concerned with it if I did.  Your bike, your choice.   

I sorted out and made a record of all my scribbled valve adjustment notes to see the trend in valve wear over the miles, it was a long cold winter:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v443/jcp8832/valveclearances.jpg

Never shimmed an intake valve in 80k miles, only the exhaust valves that recede into the seats with many miles.  Same pattern seems to be developing with the 02 GS.

[facepants]

In order to grind off the end of the valves like suggested it will be necessary to pull the head and take it apart to do it right.  I was going to make shims down to 2 mm thick, 210, 205, and 200 thick.  I don't know how likely it is they will break, but the possibility of throwing a shim at high rpm would be increased with the thinner shims.

Since I rarely if ever go above about 9k rpm, I would go ahead and do this if I wanted to put the bike back in service due to something happening to the 02 GS and would not be too concerned with it if I did.  Your bike, your choice.   

This is really tempting.  In the last couple of months I've taken off and reinstalled the head/camshafts and all that stuff more times than I can count.  But since this is my first bike, I really don't know how I'm going to treat it yet (only rode it a few times).  I think I might get some custom shims to make the clearances right and then test compression to make sure my other problems are gone.  If that solves it, then I'll take the head off one last time.

Sounds like they cut the seats a little deaper and now the valves are too long.

With one of the heads I rebuillt, I ground the ends of the valves to make them shorter. This put them into the range of the shims that I have.

Which end of the valve did you ground down?

[The Buddha]

Obviously the stem ... you dont touch the face/seat that is in the head ... in any case ... make sure you dont have oil float.
Cool.
Srinath.