Aluminum cylinder shims

[anthracitedub]

Has anyone had any experience with aluminum shims under the barrels?
I am going to make my own and I have a slug of 6160 round stock that's already close to the correct OD.... I have always seen them made from steel.

[75smith]

if you look real hard you may find a couple shops that sell custom aluminum spacers, so I don't see why not, I mean the case is pretty much aluminum too, so if you can machine your own go for it...sorry this ain't really experience, but it does give you an opinion
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[mark tucker]

I sure would not waste that round stock on a $9-23 part,and the time to do it, & I make all kinds of stuff, you could however if you wanted to make some aluminum shims cut the top off some v9 pistons & make them from that, use forged pistons,Ive made a lot of stuff from them tooling,to steering wheel adaptr. there has been many times I wished I had a slug as big as what you have there. Ive used aluminum head gaskets/spacer too on my old 1874 where the piston was out of the deck about .090" the gasket was .060 and the step in the head was too long ago to remember,but ended up with about .035 quench. so it was a spacer and a gasket. I dont rember who made them.sorry fer the spellenIm tired.

[vwracerdave]

[anthracitedub]

Already priced some from rimco....150 bux made from steel.
I work at a custom machines facility.... I'm not a machinist, but an electrician. One of the machinist said he will help me make some. The ones I need are .100 inch, so they're not just off the shelf items.

I have some cold roll flat stock that measures .100, so we were gonna make them from that, but today I found two pieces of round stock aluminum in the scrap bin.... It would be easier to just spin that in a lathe and machine it.... I just wasn't sure about using it.

[VIN]

150$?? they must have raised their prices i paid 85 for some 3 months ago.

not really an answer to your question, but an alternative.
v-w-performance.com does them for 85 as well. he actually makes them from a type 4 cylinder
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[Dale M.]

[Eaallred]

Sure the case is soft mag, but there's a lot of support/mass to it. Tightening a barrel down to it isn't going to deform it. An aluminum cylinder shim is thin, I would think deformation while tightening would be an issue.

I'd stick to steel. IMHO, cheap general sizes of spacers/shims are available, you can usually get to your target deck height/compression ratio (You can stack em!). I've never had custom shims/spacers made.
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Eric Allred

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[anthracitedub]

I don't have any steel tubing that's close to a workable size....but the aluminum I have has already been machined close to the outside. So all it really needs is clean up, bore the inside and then part off the shims. I'm gonna give it a go this Friday after work.

[vwbillet]

Make them if you can. Especially if they are going to be that thick. The shims that I had were such poor stamped quality and didn't want to stack to get what I wanted for thickness. They weren't flat to my standards and I put them on the surface grinder to clean them up and get what I wanted. I don't think plastic deformation will be a problem at the head torque and heat the motor will produce.

[mark tucker]

if there big enough you could drill the holes for the studs & they would be stronger instead of knotching them.

[turboblue]

Scat makes a nice variety of thick shims.
In a 94 bore they are available to .300" thick.

Bottom of page
http://www.scatvw.com/master/big_bore/
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Gary

Turbo VW Sand Drag Buggy

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[Boolean]

Turning your own shims sure beats the crap you can buy.
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[tncsparky]

You could make several and sell the others in the classifieds
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scotth17
I think you are just waiting around for a high-five from a unicorn so you can feel better about yourself

[anthracitedub]

Got'em made.... Turned out perfect and only took 20 minutes to cut! Only had to use a small amount of stock.....finally get to button up this machine and plug it into my 57 Ghia!!!

[RWK]

steel shims much easier to get flat and parallel,most good and shims I make are surface ground, all 4 at the same time. This eliminates machining grooves, or concave or convex surfaces left from lathe turning. difficult to recut an aluminum shim once parted from tube if its a few thousandth out
rwk

[anthracitedub]

I cut them over sized and then honed them to size on my true stone with a piece of 320.....they are exactally .1