Shim question

[Guest]

This maybe silly but I cant seem to find the answer. Bike in question is a 82 GS 1100G. Is there a difference in sizing between exhaust and intake valve shims, or are they both 29.5 mm in diameter? I could have sworn there was a difference and I don't know why I was convinced that was the case, but now I can't find anything supporting this. Maybe I picked it up from a youtube video and it just doesn't apply here.

[Big T]

All the shims for 8V bikes are the same size

[Steve]

Yep, all 29.5mm diameter.

If you happen to shop for shims at a local dealer that also works on Kawasaki or Yamaha, take calipers with you.
Their shims are 29.0mm in diameter. Hard to tell without calipers or comparing against a known 29.5mm shim.

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[Burque73]

If you happen to shop for shims at a local dealer that also works on Kawasaki or Yamaha, take calipers with you.
Their shims are 29.0mm in diameter.
.

That happened to me and they gave me a really hard time exchanging them. Thought I had taken and swapped them or something. Then when I returned with the calipers, which i should have brought in the first place, they got quite perturbed. I'll definitely be joining the shim club here!!

[bwringer]

My local shoppe, Cycle Recycle II, keeps an old Kawasaki bucket in the box of Suzuki shims, and he checks each one before handing it over to make sure it does NOT fit.

I also have a KLR650, which takes the 29mm shims. He does the same test with the Kawasaki shims, except that he makes sure they DO fit the Kawi bucket.

I don't know who was first, or what dipstick thought it would be perfectly fine to make their shims only 0.5mm different than the competition, but I'd like to give 'em a few whacks on their empty head.


I'd really like to get hold of the chief electrical design engineer at Suzuki during the '70s and '80s. That dumb bastard has cost us all so much blood, sweat, tears, and money. There's probably an old man living anonymously in a Hamatsu retirement home under an assumed name. He's terrified he'll be found out, and has nightmares of thousands of angry riders thrashing him with bundles of burned out connectors, charred stators, and their empty wallets.

Come to think of it, he was probably there through at least the late '90s as well -- my 2002 V-Strom has many of the same abysmally stupid misengineered electrical faults as my 1983 GS850.