Valve adjustment question

Hello all,

A year ago I bought a 1983 kz550 with 500 miles. It now has 2000 and yesterday I decided I was going to check valve clearance (I am almost sure it was never done before).

I found that the clearance on exhaust valves in cylinder 1 and 4 was .12 and .076 when it should be between .15-.25mm
All the others were within spec.

I did not have any shims at the moment so I put the valve cover on and called it a day.

My question: I need to buy shims, which ones should I buy? where should I get them? I do not know what shim is currently under the cap.

Thanks

I have ordered shims from both; Bike Bandit, or simply my local Kawasaki dealer. Sometimes you can simply swap between valves the shims already in the bike.

On adjusting the valves, you absolutely have to start by finding out what shims you have now in the bike, as you calculate what your need by adding or substracting thickness to what you have, and then looking up the sizes needed, on the table supplied by the factory manual. It is understood, when doing this job, once you start, you may have the bike down for a week until you get the shims you need, unless you get lucky and only have to swap the existing ones.

Of course, you can try the expensive way, and buy a whole set of shims to cover most every size you may need, when you decide to go for it. And hopefully what you need will be there.

Measure and write down each valve's clearance. Since you have under-bucket shims, you'll need to remove your cam shafts and valve buckets to get to the shims underneath. The type of shim you need are 13mm shims. You can get these from Z1enterprises.com.

As you remove the shims from each valve, you may or may not be able to see its thickess printed on the shim face. Sometimes the printing wears off. It should be a number between 200 and 310. A "200" shim is 2.00 mm thick. A "250" shim is 2.50 mm thick. Shims are available in increments of .05 mm (200, 205, 210, etc.).

If you don't see the number stamped on the shim, you will need a micrometer to measure the thickness. It's a good idea to measure them anyway even if you do see the stamp so that you can confirm that the marked thickness is still correct.

Once you know your valve's current clearance and it's current shim thickness, you can calculate the needed thickess of the replacement shim.

For example, on your valve that has a measured clearance of .076mm, if your target clearance is .20mm, then you need a shim with a thickness differential from the current shim of .124mm. Since shims come in .05mm thickess increments, you'll need to round up to .15mm or down to .10mm.

So if the current shim for that valve is 250 or 2.5mm, you'll need to swap for a 240 or 235 shim.

hugo wrote:

Of course, you can try the expensive way, and buy a whole set of shims to cover most every size you may need, when you decide to go for it.

And for that price, you will buy the peace of mind that comes with knowing:

1) You will always have a shim when you are adjusting your valves, and you won't have to wait for an order.

2) You will have shims when Kawasaki decides to stop making or supplying them like they did on the 32mm shims for my engine. Maybe they won't do that on yours (?)

Great responses, thanks! I will come back and update when i get the shims