fry
Active Member
I'm no expert technician, but I sure am becoming an expert on what not to do.
Today I began changing the valve seals in my car. I'm not taking the heads off, so I'm doing this in the engine bay of the car. With the valve covers removed, you need a special tool to remove the valve seals.
This is the tool you need, I found this picture on another forum. Basically, the hooks that have the round shape cut in them hook on to the camshaft (around the lobes, obviously), and the flat hook pushes down the valve spring. If you want to find out how to actually do this, just google it, there's plenty of good tutorials out there. It's really a simple idea behind changing the valve seals, but actually doing it is a completely different thing.
My teacher showed me how to do the first one. He made it look so easy, but I'm guessing he's done probably about 8 million of them. I did the next couple and they were rough but I got them done. At this point, its the evening and I'm hot, sweaty, pissed off, tired, and all my knuckles have been busted (popping the valve seals out is where the knuckles got busted, if you've done it before you probably understand why). I'm on the 5th one, that's right I was only half way done with one side, and the valve seal doesn't wanna pop out. I had been using a screw driver to pop them out, after I removed all the other crap. But this particular seal was not ready to leave the head. I pried on it, slipped off, busted my knuckles, pried on it, slipped off, busted my elbow, etc. Don't worry, I wasn't hitting the cam or anything, it wasn't as bad as it sounds other than my ducked up hands. After a while the shop foreman guy (idk?) tried to help me for a while. That stupid seal wouldn't budge. Finally my teacher came around and worked on it a while and go it out. It's late at this point and I'm really pissed off. So I decide to finish the last two valve seals and go home. I go to put the spring retainer clip on and tried to rush through it. I didn't have the clip in all the way and let off pressure on the spring a little too much, the clip flung off and fell in the head. The clip went down the hole in the head and now I'm officially ducked.
At this point the best thing you can do is throw your safety glasses at the wall and walk away.
I'm Liz Fry, and this is how you DO NOT change your valve seals.
Today I began changing the valve seals in my car. I'm not taking the heads off, so I'm doing this in the engine bay of the car. With the valve covers removed, you need a special tool to remove the valve seals.
This is the tool you need, I found this picture on another forum. Basically, the hooks that have the round shape cut in them hook on to the camshaft (around the lobes, obviously), and the flat hook pushes down the valve spring. If you want to find out how to actually do this, just google it, there's plenty of good tutorials out there. It's really a simple idea behind changing the valve seals, but actually doing it is a completely different thing.
My teacher showed me how to do the first one. He made it look so easy, but I'm guessing he's done probably about 8 million of them. I did the next couple and they were rough but I got them done. At this point, its the evening and I'm hot, sweaty, pissed off, tired, and all my knuckles have been busted (popping the valve seals out is where the knuckles got busted, if you've done it before you probably understand why). I'm on the 5th one, that's right I was only half way done with one side, and the valve seal doesn't wanna pop out. I had been using a screw driver to pop them out, after I removed all the other crap. But this particular seal was not ready to leave the head. I pried on it, slipped off, busted my knuckles, pried on it, slipped off, busted my elbow, etc. Don't worry, I wasn't hitting the cam or anything, it wasn't as bad as it sounds other than my ducked up hands. After a while the shop foreman guy (idk?) tried to help me for a while. That stupid seal wouldn't budge. Finally my teacher came around and worked on it a while and go it out. It's late at this point and I'm really pissed off. So I decide to finish the last two valve seals and go home. I go to put the spring retainer clip on and tried to rush through it. I didn't have the clip in all the way and let off pressure on the spring a little too much, the clip flung off and fell in the head. The clip went down the hole in the head and now I'm officially ducked.
At this point the best thing you can do is throw your safety glasses at the wall and walk away.
I'm Liz Fry, and this is how you DO NOT change your valve seals.