Coat Hanger aka Valve shim tool

last night i pulled all my shims using a piece of COATED wire coat hanger, after reading numerous posts about the tool and the zip-tie method which also mentions using electrical wire, i remembered using a piece of coat hanger to fish some wiring for my dish washing under my cupboards, it is thick wiring with a hard plastic cover, feels harder than the zip-tie plastic, this worked perfectly, i first tested the durability in a vice, plastic didn't come off only flattened out a bit, i turned it around used the other end for the valves and the plastic was in better shape after doing the 8 valves than the vice test....... just wanted to pass along my little success story for shim removal. After reading a bunch of posts, i felt a little nervous about doing this, but if you take your time (have a couple of beers while doing it, not too many tho ) it is actually not that hard......

I am getting closer to getting life back into the beast.... a few more things to do and parts to buy...... i will be contacting you know who soon enough...

 

Right on. I used the bulky cube on the end of a zip tie to do mine, but was worried about the tie cracking and coming apart inside my piston chamber. I bet your method is much safer.