Valve shims

AND make sure you put a cover or a rag in the cam chain tunnel, hate to see you drop a shim down into the motor, also those cheap shim tools are not real good, the lever is great but if possible try and find the "proper tool" like the one I have in the photo below

kza13 wrote: AND make sure you put a cover or a rag in the cam chain tunnel, hate to see you drop a shim down into the motor, also those cheap shim tools are not real good, the lever is great but if possible try and find the "proper tool" like the one I have in the photo below

Excellent point on the tools.

If one looks in the factory shop manual, Kawasaki provides a cam chain cavity cover pattern to fill that cavernous hole.

It's an intricate pattern that covers all of the nooks and crannies.

This brings up another tool to have, A long and strong retractable magnet.......

T.

Ok I am going to ask a dumb question. I am asuming that the shims from the factory start at the large end of the scale and work there way down or thinner knowing as the valve and the seat wears the shims will need to get thinner. I am to my second valve adjustment so if I by the set of shims starting at 2.50 to 3.00 I should be able to cove most of this for now. I have found a set of 20 shims for $164.00 new they sell both sets and replacements in all the size's. VW used this same set up on rabbits cars and truck I worked on.

At $8.20 a shim that seems to be about the retail price per shim if you were to buy them from the dealership. That's about $24.00 to $33.00 per adjustment if your bike required the normal amount of shim-stock.

One recommendation would be to just buy what you need at the time of adjustment.

Under normal valve adjustments, you may only require just a few, say 3 to 4 shims. Having 20 shims on hand would mean you are doing this task often, or it could mean you would have some spares for other friends KZ's. (Not a bad thing)

Generally, if you are not putting a lot of miles on your bike, the valve adjustment is only required about every 3 to 4 years.

The $164.00 would just about pay for a valve adjustment on your bike


(Just one opinion)

Regards.

T.

No eBay APP ID and/or Cert ID defined in Kunena configurationOKD:

Just saw these on Ebay, could turn out to be a cheap way to purchase shims.

Todd.