Tappet shims
 

Ive been asked if I can make some shims for a work colleague for his nissan pulsar. The idea is at the moment to edm wire cut the outside diameter from some pre hardened stress relieved D2 steel (55-60 rockwell) then grind them to the required thickness.

My questions are

a, Is this a suitable material to use ?
b, Is there a market for this sort of thing?
c, Am I wasting my time?

Your thoughts please people cheers dave

a mate of mine had some done for crf honda crosser
not sure what the material was but i think it was stainless so i would check that
i think the honda shims were expensive so it was woth it for him as it cost him nothing :lol:

Ive only stated hardened D2 as a material because we have a load of it at work as 'offcuts' from various jobs, so material costs would be free. Im not sure stainless would be suitable as it might be too soft, D2 is a high carbon, high chromium, molybdenum, vandium tool steel with good wear resistance, high surface hardness and dimensional stability.

Id say youre wasting your time, tell the cheapskate to buy what he needs from nissan. :)

Dont know what the material is that these are usually made from but theyre usually hardened and softer in the middle, will probably take you an age to do them for little reward. :)

Stainless no way, just too soft.

If it's anything like audi shims, which cover more than just VAG group cars, they tend to be around £3-5 each depending on where you get them (last time I bought any....)

haha just been to call him a cheapskate ! (he is a poor trainee designer!) It wouldnt take me long at all to cut out the blanks with the kit ive got to hand, only a matter of minutes, then grind them up to size. Was just thinking 60 rockwell might be too hard, another option may be to use P20 steel which is about 35 rockwell in its soft state.

Hes just told me hes looking at over 300 quid for the shims so it might be worth while after all!

Crikey, whats he doing? Buying their entire stock? :lol:

:lol: think its because its an import or something, the bits have got to come from japan. Maybe theres import taxes or something?

That sounds like a price for a shim 'kit'. The Audi one has (IIRC) five of each of the sizes, so £300 would work out at around £3 each - if that.

I've just relied on my legendarily sticky fingers over the years - I must have around 100 Audi shims now. But the trouble with second-hand ones is that you can't trust the inscriptions so you have to measure each one.