yea i got the hot cams shim kit also.

 

All four of my shims in the bike are 3.05. I will need 3.00 for the next adjustment. Mine are within spec but on the tight side. 5k Miles on the bike. I will check again next winter. Should be another 5 to 10k then I will do them anyhow. Its nice I know what is in there now from doing the 351.

David

 

cool looks like I made the right move

 

I've had good luck bringing shims to the local bike shops - mechanics will usually swap from their stock to give you the shims you need.

I really like the valve adjustment kit that the ST Owner's Club put together. It has a variety of shims, micrometers, angled feeler gage, DVD with instructions, shim size calculator...everything a guy needs to tackle the job. It is a traveling loan thing that gets passed around among the members as needed.

 

That's great comraderie. Really cuts the costs.

There's a couple of sets of doohickey tools (KLR) that have "seen" a lot of the country by way of members of another forum.

 

I've never heard of anyone bending or burning a valve from being too loose on the clearances.

The only real risk from loose valves would be if the valves were really sloppy on a shim over bucket design where a shim can be spit out if too much clearance and some valve float occurs. But that was a rare circumstance. I heard of it on high rpm Z1 engines back in the day, drag racers and road racers could spit shims out if the valves floated,

Heard of a lot more burnt or bent valves though. Even burnt my exhaust by being too tight.