Rebuilding cylinder head

[Adam Faal]

Hello, I am in the process of doing a budget rebuild of my cylinder head, budget meaning I dont want do replace anything unless its absolutley neccecary.

I checked the wear in the valves by pulling them out 1 cm and then tried to move sideways.

The big ones (exhaust?) had a noticable movement, so those needs doing.

The small ones (inlet?) had no noticable movement.

First question: Is this method good enough?

Second question: what do I need to do to fix the bad ones (minimum, budget remember)?

BTW, the engine is a 2.5 N/A

Cheers, Tomas

[Les Henson]

Big ones are inlet and small ones are exhaust

N/A engine? - put it back together and don't worry about it. You could lash out and re-grind the valves, but these engines go on forever.

Les.

[Adam Faal]

N/A engine? - put it back together and don't worry about it.

Thanks Les, if you say so I might do that. This is my first post but I have read a lot of your posts/articles.

As a a matter of fact a used a printout of your "2.5 N/A head gasket replacement" when I removed the head :-)

Cheers and thanks again, Tomas

[Adam Faal]

OK, so I slept on it an thought some more... I might just put it back together as you suggested, but if I do decide to renew the guides do I also have to get new valves? I mean, should you always changes both, or are the construction such that the wear is on the guides?

Also, what happens when the valve guide oil seals fail, what are the symtoms?

Cheers, Tomas

[Les Henson]

If you renew the guides (and this isn't really a DIY job), then they then have to be reamed to fit the valve stem diameter. You have to be careful fitting guides as they are easily damaged.

Les.

[Adam Faal]

this isn't really a DIY job

OK, I was reading the workshop manual an got the impression it was.

But what about the oil seals? What symtoms do I get if they are bad?

Cheers, Tomas

[markyboy]

OK, I was reading the workshop manual an got the impression it was.

But what about the oil seals? What symtoms do I get if they are bad?

Cheers, Tomas

Hi Tomas,

If the valve seals are worn you normally get a puff of blue smoke during gearchanges and on deceleration. You also normally get a cloud of blue smoke on startup.

The amount of smoke varies depending on how worn the valve seals are.

If you've got the head off I'd replace the seals anyway, they go brittle and crack with age. It's a straight forward job with the head off, although you will require a valve spring compressor to do the job.

HTH

Mark.