TOPIC:

Does anyone have an assortment of shims for the 550 that I can borrow/buy/send back what I don't use...? Or, I'll be glad to buy the whole assortment and then try to help out someone else down the road...
My local Kaw dealer doesn't stock them...

fergyfer - What year bike? The 80-83 550 used 13mm shims I think. I also believe Jeff Saunders, www.z1enterprises.com sells "kits" which include a variety of shims as well as the individual shims for those models but I am not sure what year your bike is so don't know if this info applies.

I think everyone would do well to put bike/year and city/state in their signature as it makes answering tech questions a lot easier.

Hey WiredGeorge, It's me Fergy from Burnet. I had my sig with everything in it and an avitar with my bike and it is gone. I just found my profile and added my sig but didn't see an avitar anywhere. Anyway, it's a 1980 kz550 ltd. I did look at Z1 and was fixing to call them to discuss. Problem is, I don't know exactly what shims I need until I get my hands on a 200 or 205 to check a couple of close ones. I guess I might have to bite the bullet and order a kit and just sell what I don't need out of it to save time. I just hate to do this and not get to finish it all at the same time!

The kit will probably be less than you think. I would hang onto the unused shims as you will need to adjust valve clearance from time to time. I think the 13mm shims are what you will need... or if you don't have much money, you could order a 200 shim and this will allow you to move it around on the head and find out which shims you actually will need. What you do is note EACH one that is there and use them where they are needed. I have never had to get more than 4 or 5 NEW shims when reshimming...

As far as the avatar, when you go into "profile" there is a picture download feature. I couldn't reuse my OLD avatar till I shrunk it some. I use MSPaint to shrink pictures (.jpg format).

If you can't get your feeler gauge in but the bucket still turns I would just call it zero clearance.
The local bike shop here has a shim exchange program. So once you figure out what you need you can just trade in your extra shims for the ones you need.

No such luck here. They had packs of larger diameter shims but no 13's. They seem like good folks, but must not work on the older bikes much. I haven't gotten to talk to the service guys yet.
I called Z1Enterprises and left a message since they don't list the kits anywhere I could find on the web site. Waiting for a call back...

I ordered the kit from Jeff at Z1 Enterprises. So hopefully I'll be able to do the shims this weekend. Maybe next week, I'll be able to ride!