I purchased a feeler gauge at autozone and it only had a few gauges within the correct meteric range, it has  the following:.076, .064,.051, and .038. Does anyone have a local resource that I can purchase one at rather than e-bay or on the net if possible. If not, then I will order from those resources.? I tried NAPA and they said they didn't have them, maybe it was a part timer who answered the phone, because I was suprised they didn't carry them. The tech at the Suzuki dealership sent me to Auto zone where he got his, I wounder how off his valves are ??   Thanks in advance, JIm

Sears,but make sure you either check them out or they list the sizes in metric.I know the shop manuals list the tolerances in sae,but metric is a lot more accurate.

Hi there,
You can get nice feeler gauge sets at Sears, by Craftsman of course.
If you want the long style gauges, you can flag down your nearest Mac or Snap-On Tools truck.
Best wishes,
Todd

www.harborfreight.com

there has to be one near you

+1 for harborfreight

Just got one a couple of days back for $1.99. The thinnest leaf is 0.0015in ~ 0.004mm. Thickest is 0.035" ~ 0.89mm.

I use a set of standard feelers.

The correct valve clearance is .001" to .003"

2.54 centimeters to the inch. 

I've always used inch type feeler gauges and the .001-.003" setting range and found that my 97 GS never required an intake valve shim change in over 80k miles.  Exhaust valves got tighter and one was down to a min 2.15 mm shim thickness at the end.

On the 02 GS which seems to be following the same pattern I've taken to setting exhaust valves to .004-.005" when I change a shim.  At 59k miles on the clock it's a bit overdue for a valve check.  I'll be doing it soon and have followed an approx 8k mile check interval.

I recorded all valve checks and shim changes to see the pattern, the recorded figures are for after shim changes in cases where they were changed:

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

I bought my metric feeler gauges at a machine tool supply house. It was the cheapest way to go at the time (1979). Since metric sizes are more common now, I don't think you'd see the price difference between metric and standard sizes that you used to see.

I need some clearification from people with regards to the sizes of feeler gauges to use. From what I gather the range in MM's is .03 mm to .08 mm and if you are going by english standard then it is .001 to .003 ?  Is this correct?? I bought some gauges that are maked in both metric and Engslish and what I do have are these four gauges .038 mm/.0015,   .051mm / .002,  .064mm / .0025,  and a .064mm / .003.  Now I believe these are the correct feeler gauges to do the clearence check??  I just got a little confussed with people saying numbers with out identifing what measurement system they were referring to.   Thanks in advance, and thank you to everyone for helping me out! -- JIM

You have the correct set of gauges.  .015" is the lower limit, .003" is the upper limit of the clearance.

If you can't fit the .015" under the cam you need to go down a shim.  If the .003" fits without dragging, the clearance is too large.

" signifies inches per convention.

Quote from: GeeP on May 13, 2008, 05:03:25 AMIf you can't fit the .015" under the cam you need to go down a shim.  If the .003" fits without dragging, the clearance is too large.

If you can fit a .015" you need to go up about 6 shims.  Think you meant .0015".