For those that do your own valve adjustment

[Mike]

BEWARE SOFT shims..!

A few years back, I bought a box of shims to adjust the valves on my 1125CR. I needed a shim between two numbers in the box. Out of boredom, I took a piece of 600 grit sand paper to try to thin this HARD shim a little. To my surprise...I COULD actually sand it.

This IS A BAD thing for the Buells, as the shim is a friction member. If a little piece of 600 grit sand paper can cut into the shim, the valve and or the rocker arm SURE will.

The Buell and Harley shims are VERY hard. No sand paper or file will dig into them..!
Take a small jewelers file with you, try to file one of the shims (on an edge !), if the file marks, even polishes the shim, ask for your money back.

I've heard of people using the soft shims...odd because there's a good reason Buell and Harley use very "hard" shims.
The soft shims are fine protected under a bucket where no parts slide on it, but as a "stressed or sacrificial" member...not in my engines..!

Your engine, your money.........

Mike

[rb21]

I should have specified which kit i was talking about - i ordered the factory kit from the HD dealer - the link from Phelans post. It just didn't have the last set of shims listed in the description.

Update -just checked the latest parts list from LAP and the largest single shim listed was a 2.975 - so it looks to me that the description from SPHD was just off.