Hot Rods How Difficult & Expensive to Replace Valve Guides at Home? Do a Valve Job?

Fellas - I'm building an engine and documenting on my YT channel and have tried to do everything at home - magnaflux, check valves and valve guides, checking bore taper, dingle ball hone cylinders, etc.

However, when I realized the valve guides on my heads were jacked up (had been honed .015" oversize but they were too tight and galled the valves), I figured they needed to go to the machine shop.

Now I'm not so sure that this isn't something I can handle. The engine takes 3/8" valves, does not have removable valve guides, so I'll have to drill these out to install new ones, and then I'll need to do a valve job when it's all done.

My machinist charges $400 for a valve job; not sure what he will charge to install new valve guides, but I'm sure it's at least $100. Can I get all the tooling for close to that amount?

I've been trying to find a Lisle 59000 kit but no luck. What about one of these? https://goodson.com/products/cl-375-bronze-liner-master-tool-kit?_pos=1&_sid=1076b1623&_ss=r

Would I just need that and an air hammer and hand drill?

Thanks,

Scott

 

Recently looked into a valve guide reamer for grins, let the shop do it. I’m no expert/machinist, but don’t think it’s something that can be done on a drill press (properly). Refacing valves and seats at home, no issue, if you have the tools.
Best start looking for used

 

Go to your machine shop and just watch them do valve guide replacement. That will be your best answer. Short answer, not a home job if you don't already know what you're doing.

 

Farmers did repairs like this for years in middle of know where , It just how determine you want to do all yourself ,
South Bend made books showing how to do Many repairs ,,
Just thinking??? If your valve guid is over sized , could you knurl valve stem where it would ride/ contact the guild then polish to size ?

 

As for the link to Goodson site, The heads on my 327 had those guide liners installed . So far so good. I would think a vertical mill would be the best approach to reaming the guides to size and keeping the correct location. The rest is careful hand work. That kit will do many sets of heads; for only 1 set, it's not a good investment. JMO

 

I think you totally misunderstand the ware process of valve stem to guide. If you could knurl a Hardened valve stem, then stuck it in a soft cast iron guide you would be putting a File in the Hole.

 

I just got off the phone with Goodson. Their kit to install bronze valve guide liners isn't cheap at $700+ and I'll need a few other items to go with it (centering cones x1 or x2), but it should pay for itself after a few uses.

All I need besides their kit is an air hammer and a hand drill, both of which I have, of course.

 

I didn't say anything about knurling a valve stem.

 

I've built half a dozen engines, so I'm not a rookie, and this isn't rocket science.

 

No, the valve guide is not oversized; it's too tight. It needs to be honed out, but the prior rebuilder used a shortcut and instead of installing new valve guides, they just honed the existing guides out .016" and installed valves with .015" oversize stems.

 

You actually don't need a mill. The Goodson kit is set up for using a hand drill; it uses centering cones to keep everything aligned.

 

I did ,""Knurling "" I also said polish the knurling afterwards, I can think of other ways to tighten up the clearances , but they are my ideals and I would be experimenting

 

Looks to me it would be better to get your machinist to do it for around $100. $700 odd is a lot to pay out if you are only going to use it once or twice plus your time. Then there is the thing if anything goes wrong, more hassle.

 

I'm likely to use this a half a dozen times, if not more. I have 6 project cars - with more to come - and I enjoy building engines.

 

Look in machinist catalogs,like MSC Metalworking
Reamers & hone to size needed

 

still might need that dial bore gauge, and a hone....

 

Thanks, may end up going that route, but now I'm having trouble finding the valves with .015" larger stems. Only one supplier and they're back-ordered.

 

Agree on both, but according to Goodson, once you drive the appropriate sizing ball through guide, you're good to go.

Thanks

 

I suppose. I just remember doing a few guides that way and then measuring them and having to hone a bit. It's been 20 years though.

 

Im some one that thinks out side of box & experiments, do not know cost but Im sure you cold use some alloy, titanium stainless steel ext & sleeve the oem size valve stem to get to guild size needed
just where guild travels.
or build up stem & polish to size
Aviation and Aerospace mini possibilities

 

Scott, I worked in engine machine shops for many years. First blush, I would take it to a shop and let them have at it. They probably will have done millions of SBC guides.
That said, "knurl & ream" is the go-to way to do something at home with relatively cheap hand tools. Knurled & reamed guides do hold oil in the knurling (good), they have less surface area guiding the valve, long life may not be their strong suit. Your results may vary. I'm sure there are multi-hundred-thousand mile knurled guides out there.
First, you run a knurler through the guide. It is piloted to stay straight in the guide.

https://www.cylinderheadsupply.com/kl1091.html
Then, you ream it to final size.

https://www.cylinderheadsupply.com/valve-guide-tools-core-drills-and-reamers-reamers-hss.html
The reamers come in sizes. The fact that you are oversized now, has probably fucked you though. New SBC valves can be had as cheap as they come, you might need some. The knurler may not get a good bite in the OS hole, I'd call and ask the seller if it will work in a +.015" hole.
In the valve guide heirarchy, knurled and reamed is at the bottom of the list, followed by liners (as long as they don't fall out), then new iron guides and new bronze guides.
I worked at an auto parts store with a little, back room, machine shop. We knurled and reamed a zillion guides. If they were too far gone, we sent them to the main store's machine shop for insert guides. The knurled and reamed jobs didn't come back any more than anything else.
Good luck. It is kind of a fun job. Would make for a good video. Mike

 

Maybe something like this?
https://www.cylinderheadsupply.com/valve-guide-liners.html

 

Oops, don't know where SBC came from. 3/8 should have been a hint. I have noticed other drawbacks to old age.
Everywhere I have been charged extra for Diesel. They are heavy, stink, usually covered in their own flavor of slimy mung and heavy carbon. The parts for them must have their own multiplier, they were never cheap to rebuild. Surfacing them is a bitch if they have the pre-chambers. Accurate Machine, (one of my former haunts and reason for my screen name), just quit doing them. Find a diesel-oriented shop where they are bread and butter. There is a shop in his town that wants them, he is glad to oblige. 20 years ago, he would have gladly taken them in. Now he has people waiting for easier work.
Either way, I'd call the knurler guys and see if you can bring the holes back nearer to stock. Look and see if +.005 or .010 valves are out there. Find a progressive size chart. You can change things like keepers and tip length. You are pretty close to 10mm now. Where there's a will, there's a way. We used to do a lot of old car restorations where there were just no parts. You find a way to make parts that fit. With the right reamer you might find a workable combo. They have 11 reamers between .375 and .390. Good luck, Mike

 

Hmmm, I have one of those, an N/A '92 version with around 170k in my faithful '84, ol' Blue. Hope I never get into it this far, but I'll be watching.

 

Yeah, that's similar to the Goodson kit. Not sure which one is better.

Thanks

 

Local machine shop that I've used before refused to work on the heads - he said "we no longer do diesel stuff." Explained to him that it's the same as doing valve guides on a car engine, but no luck.

I've got issues with pre-combustion chambers, but that's a story for another thread. Problem is sourcing OEM quality ones; not available except for some joker on eBay that wants $100 each! Each head takes 4 so that would blow the budget on this build.

Thanks

 

The odds of screwing up your heads drilling out the guides to allow new press in guides isn't worth it. And buying proper tools to do it and not screw up the heads will cost more than taking the heads to a machine shop. |
I learned years ago when to stop and take parts to someone who makes their living doing the work. I'll save money where I can, and do all I can, but I wont waste money trying to save money.

 

I think they actually reamed out the guides .0155" - I measured three of the valves as having only .0005" clearance. I had to tap these out using a soft face hammer.

Flex hone sounds good. I will have to see if I can polish up the worn valves a bit.

You can see a close-up of a galled valve at 5:55 into this video -

 

It's actually not about saving $ - I'm more interested in learning a new skill and having the tools around the next time it needs to be done. The $ aspect of it is just trying to figure out if I have enough in my discretionary spending account to afford this right now.

Thanks

 

Back in the early 70's Ford had a lot of trouble with their cast iron parts. Valve guides would wear enough to let the valve cock and not seat properly causing an intermittent miss. This was on engines with less than 12K miles (still under warranty). Ford's fix was to replace the head which may or may not be the same material. I got my hands slapped for sending a head to a machine shop and having a new guide installed. So Ford came out with a kit to drill out the old guide and press in a new one. There were a couple of bolt on fixtures to align with the center of the valve seat. You then used a 1/2 in electric drill to drill out the old guide. The local factory rep came to the shop and did an "after work" demonstration of how to use the kit. He then used a driver to pound in the new guide. The only problem was that the new guide fell through the hole he had just drilled. He packed everything back up and there were no more conversations about purchasing the guide tool.

You still had to re-grind the seat after the new guide was installed. However, most dealerships had valve grinding equipment back in that time frame. We did a lot of valve jobs under the old 5-50 warranty. A lot of FE engines couldn't make it to 50K miles without burning an exhaust valve.