Where can you get a tappet shim assortment?

[Anonymous]

I have a sneaking sus*@%^$*@%^$*@%^$*@%^$ion that I need to adjust my valves a little bit better than they are. Can you buy a shim assortment or do you have to buy individual ones. I saw on bikebandit.com that they run around $10 a piece. Does that sound right? Also, where can you get the tool o change the shims?

I'd like to do this myself, unless you folks think I'd be better off letting my local bike shop do it.

Thanks,
Jay

P.S. The bike is a 1978 GS1000

[Jethro]

The adavantage of a local shop is that they most likely have any shim you need and might even trade yours out for thier stock.

[gtsg01]

Keep eye on Ebay. I bought a set of 93 shims for less than $50.00 shipped. There were several duplicates and several sizes not in the assortment, but for 50 cents a piece, I'm not complaining.

What Jethro said is correct. You can normally swap shims at a local shop. You might check with a local Suzuki dealer about buying their assortment. Most dealers don't service these old bikes and may have a st of shims laying around.

[dgeorge]

you can get individual shims cheaper at CRC online http://www.crc2onlinecatalog.com about $5 each.

[bwringer]

I get 'em from CRC2 for $5 each. It helps that they're 20 minutes from my office.

But I usually buy two or three at a time -- the size I need plus maybe one size larger and/or smaller, depending on what I already have in my collection. I try to fill in the gaps and look ahead a bit. For example, if there's a 2.70 in there, I try to make sure I have a 2.65 and a 2.75 handy. Over time, I've built up a nice little collection.

Several years ago, I dropped off the original cylinder head from my GS850 to have the valve guides replaced. After a lot of money, broken promises, several months, and a drug bust, the shop owner skipped town and my cylinder head was never found. ANYWAY... the point of the story is that I also have the leftover shims from that cylinder head, since I removed the valvetrain components beforehand.

[Poot]

best bet is with local shops....check around to see who has them.

make sure they are for suzuki GS's as some are different in diameter (yamaha, kawasaki)


The tool you will need to get, is a Tappet Depressor. You can either get one from the dealer (BIG bucks) , search on ebay (good luck) or buy one from motion-pro. The one I picked up from motion pro works fine.

might not be a bad idea to order a new valve cover gasket if yours is old.

[bwringer]

I would add to get a Real Gasket and stop fooling around with the cardboard crud from Suzuki or Vesrah. If you don't see one for your bike, give them a call:

http://realgaskets.com

I would add that I checked with over a dozen Suzuki dealers one day and none of them stocked shims. Pretty silly, I think, expecially since Suzuki still sells the GS500 which uses the same shims. Guess they don't sell very many. A few independent shops might have them, but they will often try to sell you the slightly smaller diameter Kawasaki shims (bad idea). Be careful.

CRC2 carries the valve shim tool, but you probably have one already:

http://www.crc2onlinecatalog.com/