I'm at 11.800 km now and next week will see the local dealer here for the 12.000 km service, which should include valve clearance check. I have very little confidence in the local kawa mechanics. Hope they don't mess it up. Want to get a shim set and a feeler gauge to be able do it in the future myself. Any idea where to order a set? Need a shop with int'l shipping since I live in Indonesia

 

You might have problems, here in middle America, we get stuff in 3-4 days. Order Monday have it Friday sort of thing, it does take some knowledge of when the dealer orders from which brand and generally how long it takes from said manufacturer. I should note too, it may depend on which warehouse sends the parts too, west coast may take a bit. Still the dealer has a good efficient parts dept. For example, I ordered the Yamaha exhaust nuts I use on the KLX tensoner last Monday and got them in the mail yesterday, having prearranged the shipping with them. Parts came in, they shipped them when they hit. Of course they are only 40 miles from me (there may be some closer, but I set up to work with people I want to support) and if I wanted I could have gotten the parts when they notified me Friday. Good dealership, good parts service. I may have to order, but if on Monday they usually have them Friday. I have no idea how things are with Kawasaki in Canada or your dealer.

I would never buy the kit myself, since I doubt I would ever get $80 worth of value from it based on my past experience. But that is me and my evaluation. I just point it out because it seems some seem to think they need to jump into buying it to do their valves when it actually may be more expensive in the long run. If one puts the bike away in the winter, why not check valves at that time, leaving plenty of time to get whatever shims are needed and save money? I do realize some will want everything sitting there ready to go, kind of an instant gratification thing, but I don't fault that in anyone. It's kind of like that with tools. Some, you'd swear, have almost every tool in the Snap-On catalog. Great if you can afford it. My comments are for those who have time, aren't in a rush, and may want to save some money. If you find you don't fall into that group do as seen fit, just pointing out the options.

The buddy deal does sound interesting for sure. If you had a couple buddies using the same shim kit why not "spread the love", get $20 each and spring for the kit. That would really make sense. Seems the same shims for the KLX may work with Yamahas too. or many other models. My brother has a 250 as do I, if there was one more in our "group" the kit could be a good deal. Maybe even with two of us... a consideration to discuss over beers next time I see him. I would want to keep the parts, because I respond faster. I could have shims in the post in a day and we're close enough together to have the USPS hit in two day s max.

As for the forum, it would be the question of speed of posting/PMing, response, then delivery. But it would still be an interesting thing. I hate having parts lay around. I really scored a needed part when I got to swap out a rear brake carrier, because my 09 had an earlier model small rotor on the back and another rider here needed the carrier for the later model bigger rotor. We worked out the deal and he did well on it since they had two KLX250s and I made tensioners. Pure $$ I got the short end of the stick in the deal, but I planned for that to treat him fair and I was getting a part on a condition that it worked. It did he got his needed part, plus a deal on the tensioners and I didn't spend a fortune on ebay or with a dealer without knowing it would work. Gotta love forums and cool members. Win-win, pure $$ ain't everything in spite of my comments about savings on the kit.

Kind of proves the point that it all depends on one's circumstances. So don't take offense to the comments I make on this sort of thing. Heck if I could stock all the cables, brake pads, clutch, etc I'd do it. I seem to be doing that a bit without intending to do so with sprockets. I need to exercise restraint!