As stated in the past, my 1 and 3 cylinders are burning oil, as evidenced by the oil all over the plugs. The bottom end is brand new, the heads were 'gone over' and put on a shelf for several years before install. Rather than assume its the rings, Im gonna shoot for the valve seals. ( I could go on for days about the symptoms, puff at startup, etc, but I really think its the seals....)

So, Im NOT going to pull the heads. Some have suggested putting each cylinder at TDC so as to catch the valve. Will this work? Will The spring compress enough for dissassembly/reassembly?

Another option Ive heard of is a device that hooks to your air compressor and plugs into the spark plug hole.....the compressed air keeps the valve up...anybody used this method? What is this tool called and where can I get one?

On another note, I ripped my heater core out today...not NEARLY as bad as I thought. Took me 1.5 hours to get it out..........

 

your lucky. how much stuff did you break? lol

 

Nothing. Yet.

 

wow, i broke one of the braces that come down by the a-pillar. i had to make a new one out of aluminum. But it was like 20 degrees out so everything was brittle. Good luck with all your work there buddy.

 

i broke the plastic nut that holds my light switch in place. so now theres a wad of duct tape behind the light switch box to hold it in place cuz i had 10 minutes to get everything back togther.

 

When I swapped out valve springs, I used both of these methods at a time (just to be safe). They sell the adapter at Oreilly's Auto Parts. I forget the name, but you can tell what it is by the name. Or you can just make your own by using the hose from a compression test gauge... That's what a friend of mine and I did. I would do both for your situation, though you probably won't need to. Murphy's law (if something can go wrong, it will), though, says enough air will leak past the valve seat and seal to drop the valve. [&:]

 

Dont tell me that. Ive almost got the heater core wrapped up and gonna start on the heads soon....any other ways to avoid dropping a valve?

 

I wasn't saying you were going to, I was just pointing out why you should do both. I've also heard of feeding rope in through the spark plug hole, and filling up the cylinder. Valve would hit the rope intstead of the dropping all the way in. When you're done, just pull the rope out.

 

Air compressor AND TDC method worked. Thank zeus I did TDC, because I thought I had pressure in the cylinder and removed the keepers and she dropped abour 1/4 inch on to the piston. Pumped her up and had no problem. Now I gotta set valve lash....that will be another post with questions...

On the down side.....my valve seals looked squished, but they were intact. Im hoping the umbrella seals Im installing instead of the O-rings are gonna fix this problem, because if my new short block has a bad ring Im gonna shoot somebody. Not like funny haha shoot somebody, but hunt the guy down who sold it to me and go Matrix on his butt!

 

try Rambo on him, that would be more fun