Discontinued valve shims (1 Viewer)

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Nov 26, 2015
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San Diego, California
I tried to go order valve shims at my local dealer, and they're discontinued.

I'm not looking for extreme performance like Scottryana's shimless buckets, and although a few others have had good luck with Home I would rather not wait/pay for shipping from australia. I've also looked for nissan FJ20 valve shims with no luck.

Anyone else have other alternatives? perhaps there are modern cars with 31.5 mm valve shims? (Unfortunately modern cars are going shimless or much smaller it seems)

Thanks,
Nick
 
Crane cams? I assume a hardened/ground disc shouldnt be a hard to find item. Will be expensive no matter what.
 
If you have, or can find a used shim that is oversized from the size you need, you could take it to a machine shop. They could put it on a surface grinder, and only grind one side of the shim. Then install that shim with the surface that wasn't ground against your cam lobe. Now i know these shims are made out of tool steel, and heat treated to about a 62 Rockwell, and then the surface is polished. By surface grinding on only one side you'll still have a "good" side to ride against the cam lobe. Plus, by surfacing grinding the shim, you'll not be putting enough heat into the shim to effect it's heat treat.
 
tell me what size I maybe can help you find something to replace, them
 
@Golgo13 yeah trying to keep this relatively cheap (no more than the old $13 each oem price)

@Rifleman I'll see if my shop teacher has one of those. Do you know if a "rough" bottom surface will make it harder for it to spin?

@shocktower 31.5 mm diameter, .105 to .11 inch thickness (2.67-2.82 mm) Nissan FJ20 shims are said to fit but those guys are having similar problems with availability.

The good news is that on another forum someone actually ground their valve stems to get the the right clearance (11 of my shims are too thick, none of them are too thin).

I have access to the tools for that, unfortunately it will mean taking out those 11 valves (I already have the head out because I'm doing the headgasket so it's not too bad)

Thanks for the help/responses,
Nick

Edit
Googled more on grinding the valve stem tip and found this informative thread:
Valve Job/Adjustment: Tipping vs. Shim Replacement

looks like tipping is fine as long as you keep it thin.
 
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Why not grind your shims?
 
Find a grinding shop, and have them ground, a good shop can give you a great finish, and if they are a little rough, hand lap them
 
I have 1 .114", 6 .115", one 1 .116", 2 .117" and .118" shim

My shop teacher has used a large flat metal plate, put valve grinding compound in it, and used a suction cup to move them in a figure 8 and take off 2-3 thousands and polish them. (but it takes a while doing this by hand)

The .118" will be especially difficult (I can move some of them around to get them closer but I'll still have to take off at least 5 thousands)
 
Woofy, it's to bad your not close by, i could put that shim on my surface grinder and knock that .005 off for you real quick. Also, to answer your question from above, the surface finish from being ground on a surface grinder all depends on the type, and grit of wheel you use. If i ground this shim for you, the surface finish would come up smooth like glass, it just would not have a polished finish, even so it would have no problem rotating.
 
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I tried lapping them. Took about 30 minutes to take 1 thousandth off of one of the shims- WAY too long. I did check it with a micrometer accurate to 1/10 thousandth of an inch and it came out perfectly flat though! (varied a little in a 1/10 thousanths range, which I'm sure is way more than flat enough)

Instead I asked my shop teacher for his long list of toyota fj40 landcruiser parts sources and started calling. Specter Off-Road had them, although they said it would take at least 2 weeks to find them. (but it's better than trying to lap 12 of them 5-8 thousands each)

Thanks for the help,
Nick
 
have you tried amayama or partsouq?

FWIW, I'm in Australia and it was still cheaper and easier for me to get shims I needed for my diesel cruiser via Amayama rather than my local dealer.
More than one local Toyota dealer told me they couldn't get them.
 
I get co$t is part of your equation here - but did you verify via @beno he can't lay hands on the shims.

Your dealer may just not have wanted to deal with the PITA of it all for the low margin$ on your order.

Onur would be my final answer if my local guy ever tried to buffalo me on parts (he knows me after ~15+ yrs & multiple 80's).

You may have to buy a set to get shims you want (seem to recall a pic of the service shim set floating around here) - but maybe not. Worth the price of a PM to Onur at any rate.
 
Has anyone tried to purchase valve shims recently? I'm going to embark in this journey next week and still don't know exactly what size shims I need.

Also, I've seen some shim assortment sets online. Does anyone know off the top of their head what the diameter of our shims is?
 
I'm having some trouble sourcing new Toyota valve shims in the quantity I need. I could go after some aftermarket shims as this will potentially get me my truck back ~1 week sooner. I am in the midst of building a 1FZ-FE with all new Toyota parts (block, head, head innards). For peace of mind, I def prefer OEM, but I'm not the most patient owner and would be OK with aftermarket units if someone trustworthy could vouch for their quality.

30.50mm dia, 2.85mm thick. X qty 10 (13753-66160) ***I've got these being made by Toyota Japan, but they won't be ready until 1/20 at the earliest***

Are there any concerns mix/matching Toyota OEM valve shims with aftermarket ones? The vendor I am considering is from Australia. In my exchange with the owner, he says there should be zero concern and he's been doing this for over two decades.

www.precisionshims.com.au

Thx!
 
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Looking for opinions: if starting with a new OEM head, all new OEM valves and springs (re-using the buckets) would it be better to reuse the old shims and tip the new valves as needed, or get a "kit" of all new shims? The extra cost of new shims (if better to go that route) is not a factor for this build.
 
Don't tip the valves unless you have no other options. These valves are case-hardened. When you grind the tip, you're exposing the softer metal underneath, which will cause accelerated wear.
 

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