Valve Shims for trade or sale? 3VZE
 

I'm know I'm gonna need a couple when I get around to adjusting the valves. Anyone have any to trade or sell?

Wow you're really diving into this. I chickened out and just had the machine shop do mine since they had the heads apart anyways. I hear it is a major pain in the ass and you wont know exactly which shims you need until you get everything all apart.

Good luck,
Jason

How do you know you will need to adjust the valves? Have you checked the valve clearances yet?

The shim, is it the round silver metal piece? or somthing that you hang it under it? On mine the round silver piece are all the same, the guy that send me the head just grind the valve until it reach its clearance.

That's a very interesting idea. So in theory, if all the valves over time recessed tighter into to valve hole, then most, if not all valve stems would be too tight, thus grinding the valve stems would fix it. Therefor I shouldn't need to worry about buying new ones.


What if the valve it too loose? Another theory would be after I checked all cleareances and shuffled all the shims I had around to correct any problems, I should most likely have a tall enough shim left over to fix the most loosest valve.


Am I correct? Anyone else use this method?

ummmm no they are not all the same.....usually it's 0.002" difference from one shim number to the next spanning quite a bit... All can be special ordered from toyota.

Ive personally done valve shimming on my own 3vze and its not as bad as some would have you believe. However it IS a trial and error thing even following the FSM to the letter. On paper I was dead on on all my measurements and needs, yet when I installed the shims I ordered the spec'ed out properly, sometimes the clearances were off. Thus it's not an exact science and requires some trial and error. Grinding the valve stems is not trial and error friendly at ALL. Once that metal is gone, its gone forever....

Following the toyota FSM to the letter (and adding my own OCD anal retentiveness) I went through and triple measured all clearances. then pulled each and every shim, one by one, and measured them 3 times, labeled and bagged each shim individually. From that data I figured out what shims could be put where and what else I needed and thus my trips to my local stealership began. lol 1 week and 3 special orders later I got it right! :D I have about a dozen of em left over, some new, some old. But even as anal as I was, it still took 3 different orders...;)

Makes sense about grinding metal away, it's gone forever :P

Hey Bump'in Yota, if you have extras and I find that I do need a different size, and if you have that size, will you sell it to me?

Results of my valve clearances:

Cylinder
--------
5. IN .011 ............6. IN .011
...EX .008 .............. EX .008
3. IN .012 ............4. IN .011
...EX .008 .............. EX .011
1. IN .011 ............2. IN .011
...EX .008 .............. EX .008



All except for cylinder 4. Exhaust seems low and loose. Should I ground the stems on the exhaust valve to make the clearance higher and tighter in the combustion chamber?


Specs say intake .007-.011 and exhaust .009-.013

I'm not sure but I don't think you're supposed to grind the stems. I think what you do is now that you know the clearances you have....pull the shim and measure it...then do the math to see what size shim you need to get from Toyota.

When I did my zx9r (16 valve), I paid like 4 dollar a shim, the stealship wanted $5. Thank goodness I only needed like 5 or 6 for that job. By the looks of this 3vze, I should put new shims across the board to get everything in the middle of spec.

Ok I just wrote a long reply and lost it so this will be short.

All of the shims should be different sizes. The size should be on the underside of the shim but I would measure them in the center anyways just to be sure. They have been pounded by the cam lobes for years and may be slightly different than what they used to be. You take them out but keep them in order of where they came from. You can then start doing the math as to where they could go to get the valves back to the correct specs. If you're lucky you will only need to buy a few shims.

Sounds easy.....huge pain in the ass. I let the shop do it.

Also, I've never done this before so get a second opinion. :think:

Jason

sorry that I didnt see your reply there corvy, but yes most definately they are for sale. Give me a couple days to dig them up and measure them all for you. :)

Well the local stealership wants $11.69 a piece for them!!!!! Total rip off... My question is, do you think the intake will be fine as is? I will just grind a little off the valve stems on the exhaust stem side to raise it a little bit. So, only one intake stem is too loose by .001, which makes it too tight in the combusion chamber.

I'm getting antsy about getting this job done, a week here and week there, it's taking oo damn long.


How much do you want for your shims Bumpin?

Yo, been there and done that many a time.

Let the machine shop grind the valve stem to get the proper clearances. There's nothing wrong with that option and actually your least painful and quickest choice. Take heads with cams to shop.

Yes, you can not supply them to the machine shop and then wish you had supplied them to the mechanic after paying tons of money to Toyota just so you did it yourself....duh


Should be apparent by now which is the best choice.

Why pay someone else to do something when I am able do it myself. I can't afford to pay people to do stuff for me, like apparently you can. I want to be my own my mechanic on my own vehicle, and learn how to for myself and for the pride that I FIXED IT! I'm being nickle and dimed to death as of now anyway, so any money saved is money earned!

Any valid experienced response to this subject without taking it to somebody else to do it for me would be greatly aprreciated!

Basicly, I will grind those EX stems myself if that's all somebody else would do to fix the clearance. I am a competent and confident person, there is no reason I can't do this on my own... And at $11.69 a shim from the stealership, I will certainly grind the stem before paying for new shims across the board. If any shim that must be replaced, it may be one, and that's number 3 intake, the rest are barely in spec.

I just need some hands on experienced player info on the subject so I can feel good about doing it myself :) I may be a noob to the 3vze engine, but it's not first time I've worked on engines.

Would grinding the EX stem will lower it not raising it? I bet that your truck idle pretty weird on those clearance that you got? Your IN are pretty high so as you was saying to save up money, would you think using some sort of spacer that would lower the clearance? I never try it but seen them use it though. Don't use it if you are not sure too.

Well, wouldn't grinding the stems on the exhaust side make the shim sit lower and therefor the clearance would be taller on the exhaust? I would think I would be correct wouldn't I?

As far as the intake side , it's right on the boardline, and therefor I would have to replace all of those to get it corrected to lower spec standards.

I think I can live with the intake as is, but the exhaust side will have to be shaved IMO. As the heat of the valve and valve seat in the exhaust has apparently recessed further over time, and that's why the clearances are tighter now.

I know what you mean. Mine has been apart for months and months. I've been nickel and dimed up to about $3000. And that is with doing everything that I could possibly do myself. Oh well...it will all be worth it right?

Anyways this is over my head now so good luck and I'm out.

Jason

After some lapping of all my valves by hand, most all of the exhaust valves ended up under .005! They looked nice and pretty after I got done. Then with some time of measuring shims, shim swapping, and carefully grinding the tops of the exhaust valve stems, I think I got about as close as I will ever get without buying a single shim! Man, I'm so glad the stealship didn't get any of money! WOOT!

NEW Results of my valve clearances:

Cylinder
--------
5. IN .011 ............6. IN .011
...EX .011 .............. EX .011
3. IN .011 ............4. IN .010
...EX .011 .............. EX .011
1. IN .010 ............2. IN .010
...EX .011 .............. EX .011

my dealership just gave them to me, even sorted them before I got there. probably because I always get my parts from them.