Valve Seal OFF!!!

Jan 27, 2004 3 Replies

Hey, I did it. Got one of those suckers off and put the new one on.



The downside. My compressor died just as I went to pump it up for the second time before I could get the spring and keepers back on that valve..



Anyway, I found out a couple of things.


  1. The old seal was red and it had a little spring around the top to keep it taught against the valve rod. The new ones do not have this spring.
  2. I found the old seal very flexible in my hand. Could be that it was getting soft with engine heat and wasn't providing the "umbrella effect". The new seals are very firm compared to the old ones.
  3. I released the air from the cylinder to test the valve guide play. I lowered it a bit and moved it back and forth. I found none to speak of so that's great (on this one valve so far).
  4. I bought a tool for 35.00 which grabs the spring from the side and suppose to pull it up. This tool has a long arm and a shorter arm which are suppose to grab the spring. Then there is a handle at the top which you turn to compress the spring. I found this tool to be a large piece of doo doo to put it nicely. I found the lever kind of tool which presses down on the spring using the bolt from the rocker arm as a pivit point. This 2.00 tool I found at the flea market worked flawlessly. Perhaps anyone who uses the spring grabber type tool can give me a tip on how it should work.

Bill


The long arm types I've seen are designed to work with the head off - it holds the valve from one side while the other arm compresses the spring. The one I use looks a lot like a 2-leg puller where the legs have a fairly long lip thay slides in under the spring and the screw pushes a cup down on the top of the spring to compress it without bending side to side. The cup is open on the top so that you can tap the top of the valve stem to break the keepers free coming off and reach in to replace them on install. Cost me $5-$10 bucks but that was a bunch of years back. On some engines it's hard to get the lips under the spring (just tight clearance to the head walls, etc.) but it works. It will also drop the valve into the head if the pressure bleeds down, but the top cup is really good at trapping the keepers if they fly off or if you drop them when putting it back together.

Has anyone mentioned the advantages of pulgging or covering the oil drain holes in the head while you are doing this?

On this page:

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The first one I bought which has a questionable design is this one: KD 2078. Couldn't get that to work well.

The better, 2.00 one is the first one on the page: KD 912

Thanks for the tip on covering the oil drain holes.

Bill

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