Frustrated.. Cam chain, valve shims, low compression

Yeah what you gonna do. The other method sounds easy who knows maybe I'll try it. All I saw was MAY DAMAGE ENGINE so I was like NONONONONO. LOL I have had pretty good luck doing it the way I have been, other than the one incident that could have taken my eye out aside. It only took me about 45 minutes to shuffle all the shims around until I had 2 left I could not fix with what I had. Owell, good luck with it make sure and keep us updated. I'm hoping my shims come today or tomorrow so I can finish mine. Course I have not finished polishing the valve cover yet so there's probably no rush. With all the bad things that happened to me this week having this bike to work on is the really the only thing that is keeping me sane right now so I'm not going to complain!

Ron D

Hi Patton and WG and thanks for the replies. I hope you don't mind my answering you both together but your messages are very similar. The method you both discribe is by far a much better method than using the lever tool. On the one valve I tried it on, removing the shim went quite easy as compared to my other attempts. The problem came when I removed the tool and tried to rotate the cams, so I could remove the other shims. I do believe you are correct, WG, using the Kawi tool would not cause the same problem as it would keep the valve compressed until the cam lobe rotated beyond the shim bucket lip. This is probably why it is not mentioned in the FSM which discribes using the Kawi tool. It just strikes me as very poor engineering that would cause you to either have a whole fistful of various size shims, to replace 1 by 1 or having to remove the shim, see what the # is, calculate the correct replacement shim, put the shim back in and repeat for all 4 or 8 valves. Then order/buy/(shuffle...witch can't be done w/o a spare shim) the replacement shims and then do the entire procedure all over again. Anyway it seems to be a moot point now, as I cannot see anyway other than removing the cams to replace the shims, at this time. And that is going to be another whole other set of "challenges" . Thanks for the help and advice I really appriciate it.
RonJ
BTW, WG, another member in another post thought he might be able to fab a Kawi tool, if he had a photo and measurements of the tool. I showed him the photo on the Z1 website but I don't think it will help much w/o the dimensions/measurements. Any chance you would be willing to do a little measuring and post the results?
Thanks again:)
BTW Patton, good tip about not torquing the cam holder bolts w/the cams compressing the valves. That's just the thing I wouldn't even think about until something went wrong.

Post edited by: ronjones, at: 2007/03/27 14:09

Yeah, Ron, I hate it when instructions say "May damage engine" and then don't fully explain, what is ment. Good luck on your shim project, hope they come in soon. Sorry to hear that you are having such a crappy week and hope it changes real soon. Glad the bike is keeping you sane been there done that ...have the wrinkles to prove it . I was able to get my valve cover bead blasted for $10. I've painted the block and cylinders black and I'm gonna file the fins like the engine on the home page.
Good Luck to you as well and thanks.
RonJ

My svc man. has a table showing what shim to insert based on current shim and clearance . If anyone wants/needs i can try scanning in...?:whistle: