mountainshark76

I am doing valve stem seals tomorrow and I got every thing lined up
but havent decided which spring compressor tool to use? Any advice is helpful

VegasJen

what do you mean? to compress the valve springs to remove them or to hold the valve up? i use the string method to hold the valve up and that cheesy lever tool to compress the spring.
i like the string method since it's a more positive type. relying on the air scares me a bit in a tired engine.

mountainshark76

I am talking about compressing the spring. I have heard of the string way to hold the valves up but I dont understand how that is better than air?

mapman

If the rings/valves don't seal well, then there is a possibility that the air pressure would be insufficient to hold the valve "up" while you are changing the seals. Dropping a valve into the combustion chamber would most likely lead to removing the head etc, etc, etc.

My L-48 had 80K miles and the air compressor method worked ok for me.

You might want to check out the archives on valve seal replacement.

I used the "screw down" type spring compressor. I didn't seem to have enough hands to use the lever tool. :lol:

GDaina

i used a lever type compressor with great success and compressed air. You remove the rocker arm, install the lever over the rocker stud, push down on the valve...simple and the tool was cheap, around 10-15 bucks.

boredsoIstrokedit

I agree with gdaina. Unless you are going to lots of head work, get the lever type, they work well enough and are inexpensive. The pneumatic c-clamp are sweet if the heads are off, but since they aren't, you don't want that. Have fun, and I always make sure the piston you are working on is at TDC just in case you bump the valve, or whatever and it fails, that should keep it from falling, and you don't have to put anything in your cylinders.


[Modified by boredsoIstrokedit, 12:11 AM 3/16/2003]