shimming, and that weird white needle spacer

[Rema1000]

Inside the slide, down where the needle sits, there is a depression in the bottom of the slide.  The white donut-shaped needle spacer/washer is narrow enough to sit down in this depression.  And the depression is deep enough that the white spacer does not come up higher than the edge of the depression.  But the circlip on the needle is too wide to fit down in the depression... so I think that there is a little bit of space between the white spacer and the circlip.  Which makes me wonder: what does the white spacer really do, if the circlip can't fit down in the depression anyways?

The reason I'm asking, is that I have a couple of things I can use to shim the needle.  I could use some 4mm washers about the size of the circlip.  This would be like moving the circlip down the needle on the U.K. bikes.  Or I could replace the while donut-shaped spacer: I have a #4 nylon spacer which I could cut to (say) 4mm in length and use that in place of the 2mm white OEM spacer.

So I can increase the height of the white spacer; or I can lower the height of the circlip.  Which is better?  (or is there even any difference)

[The Buddha]

OK I dont remember that whole depression in which the nylon spacer doesn't sink into thing... anyway if you have a spacer that will sit in... make sure you add the the depth of the hole to current spacer thickness and then add 1mm... for a rmm additional height. and make sire that the spacer material will not get eaten by gas and other chemicals which we like to spray in the intake/gas.
Cool.
Srinath.

[john]

washer would go between the clip and spacer.  Right Srinath?  This is how GS needles look too?  These pics are from SV650 needles.

[The Buddha]

OK Oddly enough He's talking of the part the plastic spacer sits in inside the slide. The way you guys are showing is right but he was asking about that little indent inside it. BTW Rema... the method these guys are showing is how everyone here has done it... I doubt anyone has looked inside the slide so far. Also a few years ago on the mailing list there was an argument about having to lower the nedle below stock level... and how DJ lets you do that... to which I said just sand off the spacer to howmuch you want or eliminate it and just add more washers. That was the last thing I remember on that plastic spacer.
Cool.
Srinath.

[Rema1000]

Thanks about suggesting that I check the nylon.  I thought that nylon was nylon, but I found out that there are different grades of nylon, and some are not OK with gasoline.

I guess what I was thinking, is that if you add one washer, and the washer is small enough to fit down in the little bucket or depression at the bottom of the slide, then you've only added maybe 0.4mm.  But if the washer is too big to fit in the bucket, then it looks to me like it will hold the clip up high, out of the bucket completely, and this might add a full 1mm.  So one person's M4 washer might add as much as two #4 washers, by holding the clip up higher than the edge of the depression (this is just a guess... I was playing around, dropping washers down into the slide to see if they fit in the hole down at the bottom).

A washer that's just about the same size as the hole might drop down in it sometimes (0.4mm shim) or sit up above sometimes (1mm shim), which would be bad: one cylinder might be shimmed 1mm while the other might only be shimmed 0.4mm, and it could change from time to time as the needle slide bounced the needle around.

I'm guessing your #2 washers are as small as the white spacer, so they would sit down low.  The other way to go would be to deliberately use a washer big enough not to fall down into the depression; I think 4mm is big enough.  But someone here mentioned that they cracked the slide guide using a 4mm washer?  I don't see where the interference would occur.