Does the valve shim tool have to be steel?

[Rikugun]

  Harbor Freight, shows a five piece tubing wrench for 15bucks.  The 22mm looks like a easy thing to modify.  Hack saw and file, in the vice, sneaking up on the perfect size, IMHO, very easy. That metal is going to be quite soft, and every stroke of the file will be cutting it away. 

You seem quite confident in your ability and the ease of manufacture. If the metal is soft enough for easy working it's most likely not going to last very long. I don't share your "very easy" assessment of the project but I encourage you to go ahead and make one. As an added challenge, don't use your store bought tool as a model because someone making one from scratch would not have that luxury. Just use your hacksaw, file, vice and the drawing and sneak up on it. Keep in mind the step and ramp details on the backside must be recreated to a tight tolerance of accuracy.  It needs to fit neatly between two buckets for support while at the same time depress the two buckets without interfering with shim removal.  The ramp also needs to be indexed properly to the flats on the cam.  If you mess up, it's off to buy another wrench and try again.

Let us know how you make out.  Be sure to track your time, take lots of pictures and ideally a short video of it in action. Try to do one of the more difficult ones with the goofy casting that limits options and on an installed engine.  If you are successful, I will be the first to offer you a sincere congratulations.  ;D 

[Rick G]

I know I can make one, with a minimum of effort. You will need more than a Dremel though. I have a 4 inch grinder and a bench grinder, as well as the Dremel. The vice will come in handy too. This will be easy compaired to some projects I have done.

[supervision]

  That's right, hard things we do right away, the impossible takes a little longer

[The Prophet of Doom]

Like Riki I've not seen an actual picture of the homemade one.

The genuine tool seems like it is forged, not machined.  there is a casting mark running right the way round my one.  Steel casting is rather difficult, but it should be possible to cast one using durafix rods and a propane torch with some casting clay with a little hand dressing.  Durafix is a zinc/aluminium alloy and has a tensile strength stronger than some steels.

Good luck to anyone who can do it successfully. Me, I paid the price for the genuine Yamaha part ex Japan and moved on to stuff that you can't just buy in the shops.

[supervision]

  Now that is thinking, forge on.

[Re-Vision]

If we can duplicate keys, shame we can't copy small tools.      BDC

[Rikugun]

Like Riki I've not seen an actual picture of the homemade one....Good luck to anyone who can do it successfully.

Cheer up roro, looks like we'll get to see two examples when Rick and supervision make theirs!  :D  Anyone can say "I know I can make one, with a minimum of effort" and "I feel it would be no problem to duplicate" and "Its simple enough to make one from a large box end wrench. Go to Lucky's site , all the instructions are there " and "Hack saw and file, in the vice, sneaking up on the perfect size, IMHO, very easy".

Minimum effort, no problem, simple enough, very easy. Indeed. Of course it is, but now we finally have two Visionaries ready to step forward and put their money where their mouth is! Good for you gents, can't wait to see you tools in action.  :o Wait, that didn't come out right  :laugh:

[The Prophet of Doom]

Riki, you are getting cynical in your old age.

Of course you are right, if people actually followed through with their inane prattling we would have plans and parts available for a vision superbike.  There are a few people who do, but none of them go on and on about how easy it all is - because it isn't.  Reengineering other peoples work with DIY resources is hard, expensive and littered with the corpses of failed experiments.

I don't know how many newbs have arrived here with tales of how they will EFI their Vision, and then vanish when they realise they have turned their bike into a boat anchor

[Rick G]

No one will see my "tool" in action , I'm 70 years old and it would take Divine intervention for it to see action!  Ya I know TMI.
Don't knock what you can't do. When i started as a wrench , we actually repaired bikes , not just exchanged parts. I realigned a matchless front end with a bent T stem and crown,as well as bent fork tubes. The parts were on back order for a year and the owner wanted to ride his bike. Today the lawyers would get in the way! I have lots of home made tools in my tool box. either they  were too expensive of not available.
When I worked for our local Arctic cat dealer, we needed a case splitter , which was on back order and also $154.00 . So I made a trip to the hard ware store  and the metal yard and it was ready the next day. I made it from the picture in the catalogue.
The first part will be to find a SIX point 22 mm wrench!

[Rikugun]

Riki, you are getting cynical in your old age.

I represent that... :-\   :)  ;) Actually, I was born cynical. Now in my old age I've moved way beyond cynical, Why it's just a distant memory. A mere spec in my rearview thank you very much!   :D

Rick, I can appreciate your resourcefullness and have done the things you've described myself. It's not a matter of knocking what I can't do. I'd just have more respect for someone showing me their attempt (successful or not) rather than just telling me how simple it is without ever having tried it.

[jasonm.]

FYI- the tool used on all Yamaha Ventures is a close possibility. I have compared both the vision and Venture tools next to each other...getting a Venture tool and "narrowing" the "center area that presses on the bucket just a few thousandths will work. Obviously this will require a bit of patience and something hard and coarse enough to take this material off.  FYI- when completed...the surfaces must be smooth.

[rm97]

Funny that this topic showed up today, just yesterday I got a 22mm wrench to make my valve shim tool! I plan to at least start it tomorrow. On the off-chance I finish it and have time to test it I will throw up some pics.

[Rikugun]

Sheesh! Finally some long awaited pics!  :)  If you would, post a pic of the wrench before you begin. I'd like to see the before pic! What brand is it and what's the investment so far?

[rm97]

It is a Craftsman wrench (went to four different stores before special ordering it from ace...) and cost something like $14 or $18. I have all the other tools I need to make it so I do not expect it to cost anything more. I will post before, after, during use, and maybe even mid-project pictures once it is complete and tested.

[rm97]

As promised here are some pictures. Unfortunately some are not quite in focus... I'm yet to figure out how to take close-up pictures of small metal parts :-[. This project seems very simple, but it was actually a decent undertaking for me. There was lots of measuring with the caliper, grinding metal, testing, grinding again, etc. If you have all the tools and you are familiar with them I'm sure this could be done in an afternoon. Just be patient and remember that it is a lot easier to take metal away than to put it back!

As you can see I started out with a craftsman 22mm combination wrench, nothing special about it. Someone had mentioned that you should have a wrench with four flats, instead of the two normally found on the box end of a combination wrench, so that was my first goal. I first measured up the cylinder head, cam, and shim buckets with my digital caliper. After writing some numbers down and crunching a few measurements I had everything I needed to get started.

I started by scribing some lines onto the face of the wrench. I did take pictures of the scribed lines, but they didn't come out all that great. I first made lines to guide me towards the hex shape I was looking for. soon after finishing that I threw the wrench in the bench vise and roughed out the shape with my angle grinder. A little bit of "precision" work with the dremel and lots of testing yielded a box end that fit nicely against the hex on my camshaft.

Once that was finished I laid out some more lines on the face of the wrench. These lines marked the general shape I was going to be cutting/grinding the box end of the wrench into. I must have double checked the position of these lines twenty or so times, I knew that if these cuts were messed up I would be off to the hardware store looking for another wrench. Once I was confident in my measurements I put a cutting disc on the angle grinder and rouged out the circle shape. A quick run by the bench grinder got me close to what I wanted.

Now I had to work on the thickness of the tool. The standard wrench was something like 9mm wide, I wanted to get that down to something between 6.2mm and 6.8mm. I scribed some more lines, threw what was left of the wrench in the vise, and cut 2 to 2.5mm off of the width. One of my pictures shows the sliver of metal I cut off next to the box end of the wrench. I used the bench grinder to clean up the face I had just cut, getting it close to flat before perfecting the width with the dremel.

The last major thing to do now was make that "tongue" shape that fits between the two shim buckets. I first (Guess what?) scribed some more lines! Once I had that done I used a cutting wheel on my dremel to make the curved "ramps" that would gradually push the valve shim buckets down. I got those parts in the general shape I wanted, smoothed them out with a grinding stone on  the dremel, and made them super smoother with a flap wheel on the dremel.

After several hours it was finally time to test. First test was okay, but the "tongue" was too tall and didn't allow me to turn the camshaft more than 60 degrees. After a few cycles of test, grind, sand, test I got something that worked perfectly! I was easily able to pop out both valve shims and put them back in. One difference between my tool and the standard Yamaha tool is that mine has a "C" shape while Yamaha's has a "J" shape. As far as I can tell this makes no major difference, my tool works just fine.

Thanks to everyone for all the help this website provides, I hope this information can be useful to someone. Sorry about my spelling/grammar mistakes that are hiding in there.

-Rory

[rm97]

More pictures! Sorry again for the bad quality... they look even worse blown up to full size.

[supervision]

  good job!!!

[Rikugun]

rm97, thank you for taking the time to post such a lengthy and descriptive tutorial. This is the first truly helpfull post regarding the much lauded but heretofore unseen, homemade shim tool. With this post and a copy of the diagram you've shown (for the first time since I've joined this site) that it can be done. Congratulations.   :)

If you can, guesstimate the actual time you have invested in this project so that the next guy has an idea of what kind of time investment is needed. Obviously everyone's skill level is different so each will have to determine from the tutorial whether they feel it's within their scope of abilities. You've allready touched upon the tools used so that's covered nicely. Better pics would go a long way to making this really complete.

The pics as you stated are pretty bad and the whole point of this exercise (from my perspective anyway) was to photo document the attempt. Is the one with the tool engaged on the cam have the buckets depressed and shims out? It's really tough to see. My camera has a macro setting for shots like this, does yours? Sometimes it helps to turn the flash off and use an alternate light source on the subject. Ultimately, if no indication of focus on the subject has been achieved, it's all in vain anyway. Any chance of getting some focused pics?  Thanks again and nice work.  :)

[The Prophet of Doom]

Ultimately, if no indication of focus on the subject has been achieved, it's all in vain anyway.

Are you suggesting that like pictures of the Loch Ness Monster, or UFOs, or planes flying into the twin towers, that if they are not crystal sharp they are not to be believed?  You really are getting cynical in your old age.  You need to look at that.

Well done RM

[Rikugun]

Actually, you need to look less critically at my comments.  ::)  It simply means all the light and flash in the world won't help take a good picture if the subject isn't in focus. Nessy no, UFO's yes, twin towers.... don't give Coil Coyle any ideas.  :P

While unfocused pictures are often used to misrepresent things, I'm not suggesting that was rm97's intent. He seems to have made an honest attempt and went to some trouble to write up his findings but the pictures are less than ideal. That's all.  :)

Speaking of fuzzy pics and misrepresentation, what's up with that avatar pic rm97? Is that to hide the fact it's not of a Vision!?  :)  :D  ;D