Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Tappet Shim(s) Exchange Program

Adjusting the valves requires measuring the clearances and when needed, replacing the shims with a different size. A dealer doing this job should either swap the shims at no charge to you for the shims OR should he charge you for the shims, give you your old shims to do with as you please.

What to do with the old shims? Let's share them. We could

METHOD 1.
Post in the Classifed Forum what we have or what we need.

METHOD 2.
Maintain some type of database, much like that proposed for Triumph part numbers

METHOD 3.
(Got this from another website, yet this could apply to one of our premier venders, like that lt'l ol one in TEXAS!)

Texas Company offers a FREE shim exchange program to its customers. If you have purchased $XX.00 or more from us over the last twelve months you qualify.

It's Simple!! Just order the shims you need on our web site and we’ll bill you and ship them out to you. Mail us back the ones you don’t need and we’ll issue a credit to your account. Sound simple? It is. We wanted to offer this service to our customers because it’s not something your local Triumph dealer is generally going to do. We’ll be glad to take those shims you don’t need off your hands!

We’ll use first class mail for this program and cover the postage to you. You cover the postage back to us.

I have 7 shims with these sizes.

2.835, 2.855, 2.835, 2.840, 2.765, 2.785, 2.760.

If you need one or all, let me know and they are yours.

Paul

I too have some tappet shims. When my Electronic Micrometer arrives, I'll measure and post the sizes. Sometime before the Dahlonega Rally I'll be checking my clearances.....

And now that beanache has suffered as the Guinea Pig, the shim calculation spreadsheet should be good to go. If we only had a place to post it and a few more Guinea Pig's.

I hear you Moe.

I am awaiting a response from the Grand Poobah on Skillet and Beanache's excellent idea also. I'd love to see these kind of things on the board!!

Thats a great idea moe.
What if one of the members were to collect all the shims and store them. We'll call this person the shimkeeper. We would all send our extra/used shims to the shimkeeper. When someone needed shims they would just send him (or her) an email telling what they needed and he would send them shims. The person who was kind enough to do this would of course pay none of the shipping costs for incoming or outgoing shims. I would be happy to be the shimkeeper, however because I live in Canada it would add a few days to the shipping times. It would be quicker for the majority of you if the shimkeeper lived in the USA. But if nobody else was interested I would be glad to do it. I'd even go out and buy a good measuring device. This could probably save us a pile of money in the long run.

Good suggestion moe and good addition from Slug.
With the handle Slug it seems only fitting you should be the Shimkeeper for the Canuks.
I have a couple spares too if anyone needs them. We need to make up a list of which are available and maybe have Robert make it into a specific thread that can be edited indefinetly so updates can be made as shims come and go.
I would also be glad to volunteer to be the Shimkeeper for the uS folks, unless of course someone else really wants to do it. I'm sure Brent would do it for us, at $7 a shim eeh? Just busting on ya Brent, don't get mad buddy!
I agree that since they are pretty much reusable there should be no reason we have to keep buying new ones. By the way, does anyone know if the ones from Honda will fit? My CB900 had the same setup and the shims were only about $2 if I recall.

Hi Pat,
I have read that some Kawasaki's and modern Triumphs use the same diameter shims. About the only way to really tell would be to go to a Honda or Kawa-ricewine dealer with micrometer in hand.

If so that would broaden our choices of obtaining shims. When my micrometer comes in I'll Hoot on over to the honda dealership and suchi on over to the Kawasaki dealership.

PS: Isn't Brent's company in Texas?!

Good Idea Slug

I don't think there are enough Canukian members here to make it worthwhile to have a shimkeeper just for the Canuks. I think Dingua would be a great shimkeeper. He could be our Grandmaster Shimkeeper. So if your offer is still open Dingua, I think we should all send our extra shims to you.

Another possibility is if we had sort of a travelling collection of shims. We would all add our extra shims to the collection. When someone wanted to do a valve adjustment, he (or she) would notify the forum, and whoever had the collection would send ALL the shims to the person that wanted to do the adjustment. When the person doing the adjustment got the collection, he (or she) could take the bike apart, measure, and put it back together with the correct shims all in one day (hopefully the collection would be large enough so that no ordering would be needed). I'm not sure if I've explained this so that its easy to understand, but i think this system would work pretty good too.

Yeah I get it. The sender pays the postage. The reciever gets the kit postage free. Weight might be an issue, but at the US priorty rate of 5 pounds for the highest zone being $12.15, that still is good in that each shim cost around 9 bucks. So use one and each member will break even, use two and the pool effect saved a member some mula. We might have to have a central person though. And we need to get the members that have the dealer adjust their valves, to ask the dealer for those shims replaced!