Valve Shims

[CaptonZap]

If your going to gring some to size I would encourage you take the hardness before you gring one and after you grind one. I would be guessing but think thes might be hardened all the way through or maybe ball peened...?

The way I see it, the surface that rides against the cam lobe is harder than the lobe itself, and when you make a jillion of something, you design it so that you only have to manipulate it once for each operation, i.e. hardening.
So you punch it out, harden it through and through, temper it to design hardness, grind the od on a centerless gringer, grind the two faces at once, mark it and ship it.
My tenth mike cannot see any crown, so, the back is as hard as the front, and the surface gringer doesn't care how hard it is, and done correctly, the temperature never comes close to a tempering temp, and the bottom side rides against the bucket, so the surface finish is immaterial, the original wearing surface is not changed, and the hardness is not changed, and research and development is fun.
I just need a bunch of cheap chims.
Thanks for the input though. If you can find a fault in my reasoning, I'm listening. CZ

[WMarshy]

The way I see it, the surface that rides against the cam lobe is harder than the lobe itself, and when you make a jillion of something, you design it so that you only have to manipulate it once for each operation, i.e. hardening.
So you punch it out, harden it through and through, temper it to design hardness, grind the od on a centerless gringer, grind the two faces at once, mark it and ship it.
My tenth mike cannot see any crown, so, the back is as hard as the front, and the surface gringer doesn't care how hard it is, and done correctly, the temperature never comes close to a tempering temp, and the bottom side rides against the bucket, so the surface finish is immaterial, the original wearing surface is not changed, and the hardness is not changed, and research and development is fun.
I just need a bunch of cheap chims.
Thanks for the input though. If you can find a fault in my reasoning, I'm listening. CZ

One can only guess exactly how they made them or heat treated them...I think its a mute point but agree with what you described would probably make the most production sense... I still think it would be nice to grinding one in half and check the hardness and compare it to the unground surface... If I had a spare shim and the tools I would do it but wouldnt let it stop me from just doing it if I didnt... I dont see a problem as long as the ground surface is put into the bucket...

[blkryno]

shims in

I got the shims in the other day. Last night I reset the fuel mixture (colortune), sync'ed the carbs. I realize now that I'd forgotten how good this bike sounds.
So far it starts on a 1/2 turn and revs up and down, up and down smooth with no hesitation or down rev popping. For a while I've had one pop when I would decelerate and it drove me nuts. That's gone. I found out last night that, that was in #2 carb. I opened the fuel adjuster all the way and rev'ed it few times to see if it would blow out and it did for now. If it comes back I'll have to bite the bullet and pull the carb's and do the cleaning. Haven't road tested it yet cause I got the brake lines off. It's so nice when things seem to go right. Seem being the operative word there.

Here's what my valve #'s were:
1 2 3 4
I-.08 .08 .08 .05
E-.18 .10 .15 .19

Here they are now: I-.15 .15 .15 .15
E-.21 .24 .24 .21

blkryno

81 11 SH (83 Venture cct, Tkat fork brace on )
79 11 SF (83 Venture cct on the shelf for it.)

Semper Fi

Loud Pipes
Draw Cops

[WMarshy]

... Here's what my valve #'s were:
1 2 3 4
I-.08 .08 .08 .05
E-.18 .10 .15 .19

Here they are now: I-.15 .15 .15 .15
E-.21 .24 .24 .21

blkryno

Your clearances seem funny to me... shims come in 0.05mm (and some have 0.005 increments but rare) so how did you go 0.08 to 0.15 on the intake..? Maybe you used standard feeler gauges and have rounding error in you conversion..?

[blkryno]

valve #'s

Yup I sure coulda made errors in my math. Fortunately for me it all worked out well. Yea I see your point as far as the numbers adding up. At the time I just didn't think about it that much. I used the charts in the tech tips on this site. Here's what the shims were that were in and then the shims I replaced them with. #1 I-Y280/.275 E-Y300/.290
#2 I-Y280/.275 E-Y295/.280
#3 I-Y280/.275 E-Y290/.280
#4 I-Y300/.290 E-Y290/.285
I suppose I could be off a little on my final measurements but even with a thousandths here or there or a mm I still seem to be in spec fortunately there is a range ( for guys like me I guess) to fall into. We put about 150 miles on yesterday and the bike runs great plenty of power no sputtering, popping or hesitation. Again as far as the numbers adding up evenly I see your point so I'm OK with revising my math rather than going back in and remeasuring.

blkryno

81 11 SH (83 Venture cct, Tkat fork brace on, WezMoto SS Brake Lines, Stock style K&N Air Filter )
79 11 SF (83 Venture cct on the shelf for it.)

Semper Fi

Loud Pipes
Draw Cops

[WMarshy]

...
Here's what my valve #'s were:
1 2 3 4
I-.08 .08 .08 .05
E-.18 .10 .15 .19

Here's what the shims were that were in and then the shims I replaced them with.
#1 I-Y280/.275 E-Y300/.290
#2 I-Y280/.275 E-Y295/.280
#3 I-Y280/.275 E-Y290/.280
#4 I-Y300/.290 E-Y290/.285

Assuming your clearance listed above is correct (in mm) and given the shims you swapped, your new clearances would be as follows.

1, 2, 3, 4
I- 0.13, 0.13, 0.13, 0.15
E- 0.28, 0.15, 0.25, 0.24

Your number 2 Exhaust is still below spec... you sould have went with a 2.85 shim to get 0.20 clearance (which would still be on the tight of the tolerance side I believe).

[blkryno]

shims

OK, thanks for double checking. Sometimes two heads are better than one. I'll keep an eye or ear out for any oddities with the running.

blkryno

81 11 SH (83 Venture cct, Tkat fork brace on, WezMoto SS Brake Lines, Stock style K&N Air Filter )
79 11 SF (83 Venture cct on the shelf for it.)

Semper Fi

Loud Pipes
Draw Cops

[WMarshy]

OK, thanks for double checking. Sometimes two heads are better than one. I'll keep an eye or ear out for any oddities with the running.

blkryno

81 11 SH (83 Venture cct, Tkat fork brace on, WezMoto SS Brake Lines, Stock style K&N Air Filter )
79 11 SF (83 Venture cct on the shelf for it.)

Semper Fi

Loud Pipes
Draw Cops

Not a problem, you probably wont notice any issues with running, if anything it will run better all around because most of the valve are back within spec. I just reshimed mine and all but 2 are in spec now and I noticed it has more power through the entire RPM range... Getting the other shims in is just piece of mind. Enjoy this riding weather!

[CaptonZap]

One can only guess exactly how they made them or heat treated them...I think its a mute point but agree with what you described would probably make the most production sense... I still think it would be nice to grinding one in half and check the hardness and compare it to the unground surface... If I had a spare shim and the tools I would do it but wouldnt let it stop me from just doing it if I didnt... I dont see a problem as long as the ground surface is put into the bucket...

That is the way I saw it. And to answer the hardness through and through, look at it this way. The only reason to have them hard at all is to provide the needed difference in hardness between the cam and shim. If we grind the "down" side, it rests against the bucket, so there is no care if it is hard or not, since there is no movement between them. You will still have the hrdened surface against the cam. I have the grinder, but no way to test hardness. If you had a tester, and we could find a patron, we could find out. CZ

[blkryno]

Hardness

I worked as a heat treater for about 5yrs in a steel foundry. (total about 15yrs pouring steel and other jobs) Because of the heat treating and annealing process. If it's hard on one side it should be the same on the other side or something is wrong. You can't heat and cool and anneal only half of a piece of steel. If you try to attach another piece of steel by welding or pouring in a mold you lose the temper that you put in in the first place. This especially applies to small inexpensive items like these shims. Probably someone on here knows more about metal than I do. But, if I remember correctly to attain this kind of hardness for wear resistance. These were probably Heated to about 1650 degrees to 1850 degrees, air cooled over a fan, and annealed at about 500 degrees to 800 degrees for four or more hours. This makes for hard piece of steel but it can also be brittle and not stand up to impact. These may have been oil quenched instead of fan cooled to prevent them being too brittle.

blkryno

81 11 SH (83 Venture cct, Tkat fork brace on, WezMoto SS Brake Lines, Stock style K&N Air Filter )
79 11 SF (83 Venture cct on the shelf for it.)

Semper Fi

Loud Pipes
Draw Cops