I'm quite overdue for valve adjustments, and reading the valve advice thread below has me wanting to do mine.
Where can I buy the correct shims, the correct feeler gauges, and the tool to press in the bucket?
I watched kerry's video tutorial, and feel fairly confident, but I don't know where to get all these materials.
Thanks for the advice!
Quote from: mattress on April 28, 2008, 07:40:20 AM
I'm quite overdue for valve adjustments, and reading the valve advice thread below has me wanting to do mine.
Good stuff! :thumb:
Quote
Where can I buy the correct shims, the correct feeler gauges, and the tool to press in the bucket?
Feeler gauges can be purchased at any store that sells auto parts or tools. Make sure you get a set of the blade type gauges. You should buy a set with the thinnest gauges possible; the valve spec is 0.03 mm - 0.08 mm, so you want something that can measure as thin a gap as 0.03 mm. That being said, a 0.03 mm blade is not very common, so you may have to settle for 0.05 mm as the smallest.
The valve bucket compression tool can be purchased on eBay ("Suzuki shim tool") or at your local motorycle supply store. You are better off buying the Motion-Pro imitation tool (#08-0017) for about $20 than the Suzuki version for much more.
http://www.motionpro.com/motorcycle/tools/valve_shim_tools/ (http://www.motionpro.com/motorcycle/tools/valve_shim_tools/)
The shims will need to be purchased after you take the valve measurements. Once you measure the clearance, you can determine how far off spec you are. Then you take this info and calculate what size the replacement shim should be. Alternatively, you can use Kerry's handy conversion chart:
http://www.bbburma.net/Documents/ValveAdjustmentVideo/GS500_Valve_Shim_Selection_Chart.pdf (http://www.bbburma.net/Documents/ValveAdjustmentVideo/GS500_Valve_Shim_Selection_Chart.pdf)
More info is available on the WIKI: http://cgi.stanford.edu/~sanjayd/gs500/Maintenance/CheckValves (http://cgi.stanford.edu/~sanjayd/gs500/Maintenance/CheckValves)
Feeler gauge can be purchased at www.bikebandit.com .You need the metric one that goes down to.03mm.
You can buy an inch feeler gauge set at your local auto parts store for a couple of bucks.
The valve clearance spec is .001" to .003".
CONVERSION:
inches * 2.54 *10 = millimeters
millimeters / 10 / 2.54 = inches