Valve clearances is not the most fun thing you can do with an SV650.

That said, its really not that hard. Here is what I did:

• Remove seats
• Remove Tank
• Remove front fairings (See next point)
• Drain Coolant and remove radiator (you probably need to replace the coolant anyway on this service, worth it for easier access)
• Remove Valve covers

Now we can begin! Checking the valve clearances is well documented in the proper Suzuki manual, simply a case of rotating the engine to a set position on using feeler gauges to find the clearance. I was not the most happy person in the world to find all 4 rear cylinder valves were 1 thou too tight. Things got better when the front turned out to be in spec.

So then its cam chain tensioner out, and cams out, tappets out (keeping them very carefully labelled!) and finally you get to the shim, a small piece of steel 7.48mm in diameter and available in 0.05mm increments of thickness. Some quick cross referencing of your current clearnace and shim size with Suzuki’s SV Bible and then you can order the new shims from the interwobble.

I now have the shims, and fully plan to remember to take photos tonight when i start putting the thing back together. After that, this is a job I can ignore for another 15,000 miles .