Hello,
I've been a member here for awhile, but been out of the loop for about a year now. I'm doing a valve check/adj on my Y2K Viffer (my first DIY on VFR valve adj.) and want to know where I can get a shim kit that works with my bike. I've searched the other threads and I've seen mention of kits available through Cycle Gear, but I looked on their site and cannot find any. Honda DirectLine has bags of shims for $5.89 per bag but each bag only contains one thickness and I don't want to buy a boat load of shims.
I saw a kit on EBay made by a company called Hot Cams. Will these work for my purposes even though I'm not installing a custom cam? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks
Hello,
I've been a member here for awhile, but been out of the loop for about a year now. I'm doing a valve check/adj on my Y2K Viffer (my first DIY on VFR valve adj.) and want to know where I can get a shim kit that works with my bike. I've searched the other threads and I've seen mention of kits available through Cycle Gear, but I looked on their site and cannot find any. Honda DirectLine has bags of shims for $5.89 per bag but each bag only contains one thickness and I don't want to buy a boat load of shims.
I saw a kit on EBay made by a company called Hot Cams. Will these work for my purposes even though I'm not installing a custom cam? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks
Okay so I looked and found the CycleBuy.com has the same Hot Cams kits in 7.48mm diameter shims which it says work for VFR750 and VFR800. So I guess so long as the shims are 7.48mm in diameter I should be okay then right?
If I were you, I'd wait until you've done the measurements and know what size shims you currently have and what size they need to be. I was able to swap the existing shims around between valves, and in the end I only needed three replacement shims. I took them down to the local Honda dealership, and they let me dig around in their box of shims and traded my three shims for the correct sizes.
+1 to P.J.
Do your valve check and see what shims you actually need. Any Honda dealership will have the shims you need around somewhere, and even at their inflated prices will be cheaper than buying a shim kit.
You could also just buy a bunch of thick shims and belt sand them down to required thickness.
Before I do any more valve adjustments on bikes that need shims, I intend to have that shim kit in my hands. I've heard on other forums from people whose dealers had shims and swapped them, or sold them the new shims on the spot. But last time I needed shims, it was an all afternoon phone marathon before I found a shop that would admit to having any shims, and I had to travel halfway across the state to get 'em. Thank goodness I had a second bike to take out there. Then when I got there, they didn't have the sizes I needed. Fortunately I was able to substitute a slightly thicker shim that they did have, for the one they didn't have, and get that valve just barely into the spec. But I sure would have preferred to adjust it to the middle of the spec.
Now, my guess is that many of those shops *did* have shims, and the people on the phone were just too dumb to know about it. But I had no success in persuading any of them to think harder about it.
I don't like reassembling the bike without finishing the job, and I don't like leaving it with the valve covers open for a week while I wait for shims to be shipped. It's worth it to me, to have the shims already in my hand before I open things up.
Before I do any more valve adjustments on bikes that need shims, I intend to have that shim kit in my hands. I've heard on other forums from people whose dealers had shims and swapped them, or sold them the new shims on the spot. But last time I needed shims, it was an all afternoon phone marathon before I found a shop that would admit to having any shims, and I had to travel halfway across the state to get 'em. Thank goodness I had a second bike to take out there. Then when I got there, they didn't have the sizes I needed. Fortunately I was able to substitute a slightly thicker shim that they did have, for the one they didn't have, and get that valve just barely into the spec. But I sure would have preferred to adjust it to the middle of the spec.
Now, my guess is that many of those shops *did* have shims, and the people on the phone were just too dumb to know about it. But I had no success in persuading any of them to think harder about it.
I don't like reassembling the bike without finishing the job, and I don't like leaving it with the valve covers open for a week while I wait for shims to be shipped. It's worth it to me, to have the shims already in my hand before I open things up.
I fall into this category too. I talked to the stealer in my town yesterday and they "don't have any shims" but they can order them for me. Well no duh! I can order them myself on DirectLine. They did confirm for me that 7.48mm shims are what the 99-01 5G VFRs use. So I went ahead and ordered a shim kit