Need My Head(s) Examined

Hi Richard, yes it has taken this long to get around to pulling a valve spring.

Went out last night and ran into a problem with my distributor which has been resolved. Also threw in an oil primer tool and turned the pump. Happy to say that all of my pushrods were oozing oil in no time at all. Some of which oozed all over my nice clean engine...

Anyhow, tried pull a valve spring with the tool shown in the other thread (see about 7 posts back, this thread) and it looks like I am having the same problem as that guy. I have an inner and outer spring with a damper in the between and my tool will only grab the outer spring and the damper. I could not unseat the retainers (keepers?). However I now could push down on the valve and compress the inner spring by hand. Could not push very far (either I ran out of strength or it was hitting the piston which is ad TDC). Knowing this, any off-the-cuff advice on knocking it loose, modifying my spring tool, etc?

I assume the guy in the other thread yanked his heads off to get the job done, he never returned to finish his story. I do not want to do that.

i use a spring compressor like on page 46 in the comp book they may have it on line www.competitionproducts.com #7080 i have put new roller springs 1.625 id that have 250lbs on the seat. on engines with this type. you need to un lock the keeper locks. they wedge in the spring retainers you want to give them a good hit off the side abit on the top with a rubber mallet to help un lock them

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DennyW

Yes, I use that one also. Wrapped the handle with a little padding, and black tape, for those hold it for a minute times. :LOL:

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All that compressor did was piss me off :LOL: It bent the first few times of use.

i have two of them one like stock and one i rework for hi intakes like a blowers never bent the two i have and the spring s i have put on with them have not been wimpy springs stock springs .like i said 250 lbs at seat and past 500lbs + open you must have a cheapy one

I dont know how to use that one (nor do I own one), I have the kind that you screw down over the spring. I went back again and rapped a few times on the retainer and tried again and this time the keepers came loose. I just needed to enlist a second pair of hands to pull out the keepers while I compressed the inner spring by hand (pushing down on the valve spring compressor). Success!!

So today I am bringing the springs, hardware, seat height, and cam card to my machinist to find out how stiff they are. Hopefully they will be acceptable enough for my cam. A big lesson learned....:rolleyes:

Hey here is another lesson....always make sure your machinist tightened up the lifter oil galley plugs before you install your transmission!!! :CRY:
I primed the motor two days ago and found a big puddle of oil under the car the next day. Crawled underneath and the rear main seal area looks dry (whew!)...inspected a little further and it appears to be squirting out onto the flywheel on the passenger side. btw: when I ran the primer, my gauge went right up to 60psi so it is not a gaping hole. I am assuming that it is a case of a finger tightened plug....we'll see.

So if anyone knows an easier way to tighten those plugs without pulling the tranny back, please speak up!....still gonna try and start it this weekend pending the this leak and my springs. Serious PITA and frustrating but hey...that's hotrodding...if it was easy, everybody would do it.

alot of times we drill the lifter front galley plugs to ge air out small hole .035 or so and GM did this to .i do it to throw more oil on the the chain set. it help put oil on the thrust were the top gear rides on the block or the thrust washer to the block and some guy s re use the old plugs you want to make sure they do not get mix up i have never done this but have seen it done. when your eyes get old they are hard to see i all ways checks this if i reuse the old plugs

hmm..good point Pat...a pin hole like that would produce a nice squirt at 60psi. I'll check for that tonight....Like I said, I hope it will be just a matter of tightening a loose plug or something easily fixable like that.

You get the prize Pat.....I pulled the transmission (with some help) and found the passenger side oil galley plug had a hole about the size of a pin drilled through it !!:mad:
I guess I should have found it before I installed the motor but everyone makes mistakes (including my ex-machinist...that's his second strike on the same engine build). A serious amount of work for such a small, easily fixable problem, but at least it's fixed. Thanks for the heads up!