I like to just remove the cams completely; it's not much more work, and gives you access to all the shims at once. This can be helpful, as you can sometimes just swap shims around for some of them and you may find you may only need to get a few 'new' ones. The main trick is to keep tension on the cam chain at all times so it doesn't slip off the crank sprocket, but that's not that tough to do. I just pull all the slack up and hang it over the carb side of the head with a weight through it to keep it tight. You do have to re-time the cams, but again that's not that big a deal.
The other helpful thing I've got is a set of feeler gauges that are ground .002" thinner on the ends, so the gauges are dual thickness (.006/.008", etc). These work great as a go/no-go gauge, as that's the allowable 'range' on the valve lash. The set I have is made by Blue Point (# FB-322, still available for under $15), but others probably make these too.
If you're 'metric challenged', remember that each 'step' in shim thickness equals about .002", so checking all lash numbers before pulling the cams will make it easy to figure what you need. If you have any with zero lash, you may need to do those twice.
The other helpful thing I've got is a set of feeler gauges that are ground .002" thinner on the ends, so the gauges are dual thickness (.006/.008", etc). These work great as a go/no-go gauge, as that's the allowable 'range' on the valve lash. The set I have is made by Blue Point (# FB-322, still available for under $15), but others probably make these too.
If you're 'metric challenged', remember that each 'step' in shim thickness equals about .002", so checking all lash numbers before pulling the cams will make it easy to figure what you need. If you have any with zero lash, you may need to do those twice.
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