At 07:14 AM 12/18/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>Well, I unbolted the header from the head, and sure enough, it is oily
>inside of the exhaust port. I can only assume that the one exhaust valve
>needs a new seal. This is a major blow to me because the engine has less
>than 1200 miles on it since a rebuild (in 1984 though). I tightened the
>header bolts better than they were, so hopefully that might help the
>leaking onto the headers. However, I would like to try to seal that
>valve without removing the head. It seems like such a waste to do all
>that work for one leaky valve. Can anyone recommend a solution? Possibly
>an oil additive or another alterative? Thanks
>
>Scott
A few comments: First Tom's rope trick works much better if you
draw the piston down the cylinder, install several inches of a soft rope,
and then raise the piston until it stops. This generally gives full
support to the head of the valves so that you can press down on the
retainer and the valve will stay put. It will also help to tap the
retainer with a good size rubber hammer to "unseat" the taper wedge prior
to simply pushing on the retainer. I hope your working on cylinder #5 as
it gets much harder as you head to #8. You can also use a modified rocker
arm (split to press on the retainer rather than the valve stem) if you are
in a "limited access area".
Typically the exhaust valves don't really need much in the way of
a seal since they don't have the vacuum of the intake side to draw the oil
thru the valve guides. I'd be looking for "other" causes for the oil
leak. A leak down test will typically give you a better picture of the
cylinder conditions than a simple compression test.
If this is the first "run" since the rebuild, and your not
successful replacing valve seals, give serious consideration to honing and
re-ringing all cylinders. The rings have lost considerable tension in the
20 year storage and may even have damaged the cylinder walls if moisture
has been allowed to enter the engine during storage.
Tom Hall
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