Soooo my customer/friend calls up and asks for help on his blown Flathead engine, seems that the exhaust valves and guides rusted/seized in the block. The engine ran 2 years ago and has been stored in the shop-garage ever since. I had been working on the car getting it ready for the RPM Nationals (the end of the month). Pulled the magneto in order to do some welding and then was going to drop the mag in place but first had to bring it up to TDC. Crank only turned over 340* before it locked up. That was a hard phone to make to inform him of a serious problem. He brought the car home and with a buddy, pulled the top end and witnessed all the rust around the exhaust valves. His friend came down ill and had nobody to help so he called me--- What the hell do I know about these engines? Im a Chevy guy. Handed me the guide pry-bar, and immediately broke the guide, it was that stuck. Contemplating my next move was to lift the spring retainer and remove the keepers to let the valve be removed and then tap the guide loose. That started out good until the valve did not want to come up/out. Working with prybars and screwdrivers forced the valve up about 1/2" and that was it. The valve was trashed from the prying so my next move was to use a "pickle-fork" and try to wedge it up. Well that lasted about 2 hits with a hammer and the valve head popped off, flying across the shop, but now I could get to the guide using a 1/2" extension and rap the guide loose enough to remove the guide retainer clip and then remove the guide. Had 2 others that I had to do the same procedure, but with experience only took 10 minutes instead of an hour like the first one
SOP for most of the old flatheads I've worked on; though I've had several that I got all 16 without going Medieval on them...
Wow! I’m really feeling lucky, after having read your story of the stuck Flathead valves. Luckily, even though my car had been sitting for 44 years, I only had one that needed to be removed in order to be freed up. In my case, it was only some baked on carbon that was preventing the valve from moving.
Once the valve is removed, getting the guide out is easy. Insert a 3/8" socket head cap screw in the hole, stick a drift punch in the pocket of the screw, and drive it down and out with a 3 lb hammer.
That must be some serious condensation in your customers garage, or he had it stored next to the pressure washer washing area. Do you even have condensation in CA ? .
What Budget said - I've never had a problem with replacing the assembly after removing the C clip - which I've done on most of the stuck valves I've come across.
Dumb old me , I even spent 3 months in SanFrancisco in the early 1970s . Juanita Way. Foot of Mt Davidson. Fog, fog, fog.
The problem was that some of the exhaust valves were seized (and closed) in the guides, being such, access to be able to rap the guide to loosen in order to remove the clip was the issue, hence releasing the keepers in order pry the valve up. ran out of leverage, so I broke the head off to gain access to the guides. The process either to spend an hour fighting it to save a $15, or get the job done and buy new valves
If both valve and guide are stuck to a point that when one uses the guide removal bar that the notch on the guide breaks off, then what do you do??? The clip is up in the block cavity
The Jalopy Journal
