1998-2000 Valve shim O.D.?

[Jeremy M.]

I have a fair bit of clatter coming from my valves, and I've decided to dive into my heads (again, ugh) to set the clearances properly. My problem is that I don't want to be stuck pulling the camshafts twice, and as my LS is my only car, I couldn't leave it apart for a few days while getting the shims from a dealership.

Because of that, I'm looking at getting an aftermarket shim kit, since Toyota/Lexus doesn't want to sell me an assortment. My biggest problem now is finding the right diameter for the shims! I've been looking online and can't seem to find any O.D. measurements, and was hoping someone would have a shim handy to measure, or has better search skills than I do. A part number for one thickness shim is 1375322040, and they are for the 98-2000 LS400, which AFAIK are the only model years with the shims under the buckets (just my luck, otherwise I wouldn't be stuck here, I could just pop off my valve cover for a quick peek)

 

TL;DR- Looking for the diameter of the valve shims in a 98-2000 LS400: part number 1375322040 in order to find an appropriate aftermarket kit

[paulo57509]

There's really no way around having the car immobile for a length of time. Just getting to the cams to remove them is more time than replacing the timing belt.

I had the cams out of mine back in November.  I could have measured the shim OD for you.  Not to rub your nose in it.

The attached spreadsheet may be helpful.  It will at least limit the number of trips to the dealership - you know exactly what shims you'll need.  I used a similar one when I did my 4-valve Ducati (which BTW is a bigger PITA than a Toyota).

 

 

1UZ Shim Under Bucket Calculator.xls

[Jeremy M.]

For better or worse, I have a fair amount of practice getting my cams in and out lol- I can get through the job in around 7 hours now, although it's still a bear. I'm just hoping to do it all in one go, rather than spill over into the next day because I had to put everything back together again. Thank you for the Excel spreadsheet though, that will definitely save some time and headache writing down and manually entering the values.