FJ prices

[FJmonkey]

The oil pool in the shim bucket is a simple way to describe it. Or think about how the oil is a film between the bucket and shim. When hot/cold, the oil viscosity changes, like honey on a cold day. Put a shim back into a bucket with cold oil and squash it back down by turning the engine. Then think about the film when it gets quite hot and thins out allowing the shim to sit closer to the bucket.

In truth, the difference is not much. But a shim seated in cold oil may not seat properly and can be off quite a bit more. So measuring after a shim has been put back in and before a proper running/heating of the engine, will likely produce bad measurements.

And over night is not required for measuring if one is in a hurry. Cooling can be done quicker with fans and in the time of any given "Man Shed Day" shims can be adjusted. Once the engine is cool, the valves can be measured/adjusted.

I almost forgot an important item, "Measure twice, Cut once" and Kookaloo My Friends. Or is that "Measure twice, Adjust once"

[JPaganel]

I am put off by carburetors. They are annoying and can be finicky. 

There is no doubt FI is a great improvement, even from it earliest days it offered performance enhancement and was trouble free for the life of the vehicle, but the issues you speak of caused by carbies is IMO greatly over stated. Once set up with proper filtration and supply and tuned, that should be the end of it for a very long time.

Noel

Yeah, but getting there... I have been screwing with my latest FJ project for something like two years now. Granted, this is not a concerted effort every day, I get to it time permitting, but still.  Goddamn fiddly floats, constant pulling and reattaching carbs to change anything,  the 16 screws to get into them that are all made of warm butter, the needle valves that leak...

How is any of that simpler than "it just works"?

And the gas spillage  when the bike tips over, which caused the total loss of my first FJ.  Were it fuel injected, I would have needed some plastic. As it was, I got a flaming wreck that was a goner.

On the other hand, I really don't get  the part of this thread that talks about problems setting valves. I don't find it complicated at all. That BMW has same style shim over bucket valvetrain. I've done it on a bunch of other Yamahas, too. Hardest part was paying for the new shims.

[racerrad8]

Randy mentioned something about oil pooling in the buckets when you pull the old shims out.

It has been mentioned many, many times over the years...

There are even a couple of photos in some of the threads illustrating the phenomenon.

http://www.fjowners.com/index.php?topic=4025.msg35236;topicseen#msg35236
http://www.fjowners.com/index.php?topic=5621.msg49148;topicseen#msg49148
http://www.fjowners.com/index.php?topic=8991.msg85579;topicseen#msg85579
http://www.fjowners.com/index.php?topic=12274.msg122739;topicseen#msg122739
http://www.fjowners.com/index.php?topic=15901.msg160517;topicseen#msg160517

Randy - RPM

[Motofun]

Thank you Randy!  I never would have guessed that the oil film would be that important but experience has spoken!  I've had similar issues with my shim under bucket valve trains.  As you know those shims are quite a bit smaller so the pressure on them to cause the oil to extrude has to much much higher...my guesstimet is about 16 times (ratio of surface area) assuming equal spring force.  I going to "assume" that the hydraulic properties of the oil are still strong enough to resist....Damn!  Now I'm feeling the need to redo my race bike....

[bcguide]

I have at least 3 sets of feeler gauges but I still seem to get a problem finding the one gauge that accurately "just" fits.  It seems I'm always interpolating between one that's too big and one that's too loose.


you might want to find a set of go no go feeler gauges