Feeler guage markings

[rwcfrank]

Okay people, I am totally confused. The valve clearance on my 750 is supposed to be 0.03-0.08 mm or .0012-.0031 in. My feeler gauge set has nothing close in metric or inch readings. What should the feeler guage read? I must be getting old cuz this used to be easier when I was young!

[Steve]

Well, you already said what it should read.

What does your set have?

If you have an INCH set of feelers, you will see .0015, .002, .0025, .003, .004, etc.

You will only be interested in the .0015 through .003.

There might be metric equivalents printed on the feeler, but they are made to INCH specifications, so stick with those numbers.

.

[qisteve]

Okay people, I am totally confused. The valve clearance on my 750 is supposed to be 0.03-0.08 mm or .0012-.0031 in. My feeler gauge set has nothing close in metric or inch readings. What should the feeler guage read? I must be getting old cuz this used to be easier when I was young!

That .03 mm is really hard to find. It's super thin, almost feels like aluminum foil. I checked Sears and several other suppliers looking for one and couldn't find a set that included that size. If a .0012" guage won't fit but the shim still rotates freely, then it's time to put in a thinner shim and you'll end up with clearance within spec. If the shim won't rotate freely without the gauge in place, then you have no clearance and you need a thinner shim ASAP! Hope this is helpful.

[tkent02]

Z1 has good ones.

[Steve]

Z1 has good ones.

True, but doing a search at Z1 for "feeler" shows just one metric set, and it only goes down to .04mm. None of their inch sets go below .002".

.

[Rover]

Amazon has them.Mine starts at .02mm and boy it is thin.

[rwcfrank]

Got it! I do have the super thin .0015 and .003. I thought those were too thin and I was making a mistake somewhere. Thanks for the help!

[Steve]

Got it! I do have the super thin .0015 and .003. I thought those were too thin and I was making a mistake somewhere. Thanks for the help!

No, those are your MIN and MAX.

When you go to record your clearances in the spreadsheet, if your .0015 feeler does not go in, enter a "1" in the spreadsheet, it will trigger the "too small" warning and tell you what shim you need (after you tell it what shim is in there now).

For those that are commenting on how thin the feelers are, remember that .08 mm or .003" is the thickness of a piece of paper, and that is the MAX clearance.

.

[bwringer]

Bikemaster markets a set of metric feelers that goes down to .03mm. You can find a black Bikemaster tool display in most metric motorcycle shoppes, or check with your favorite online purveyors or moto-goodies.

As noted above, it's really not needed -- if a clearance is .04 or .05mm, I'm changing that shim. Clearances up to .10mm are perfectly fine -- you don't even hear any extra noise.

Most bikes run much larger clearances -- for example, on my V-Strom, intake clearances are supposed to be .10 - .20 mm, and exhaust .20 - .30mm.

On my KLR650 (liquid-cooled, but a shim-over-bucket system very similar to the GS), the intakes are .10-.20mm and the exhausts .15-.25mm.