Has anyone done a valve guide seal replacement on a 16 valve head while it's still on the motor? I have some smoking on start up so I started to replace the valve guide seals. I'm having a bitch of a time compressing the valves with a varity of homemade tools and it's becoming an exercise in frustration. Has anyone made a tool for compressing the valves? I've already made up an air fitting for the spark plug hole and have done the seals on #1 cylinder but it was a |removethispart|@^$%|removethispart|@ing Bitch! I did do a search but came up with very little info, other than Wilds suggestion of making a prybar with a forked end. Can't seem to visualize it or figure out how to make it work if I did. Someone mentioned prying under the cam to compress the springs but how would you get to the valves with the cam in? The rockers would be in the way, no? Maybe I f'd up by removing my cam but I have plenty of room. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Mike

it's a &!+|removethispart|@# with the head off, the best idea I could
come up with for home grown tools is using a crowfoot
on an extension, and push the spring down with your
body weight, leaving both hands free to mess with the
keepers and springs, I used a second pair of hands, and
it took a while to do all the valves, we power lapped the
valves with a hand lap tool suction cup and a Dewalt cordless
drill for the rotational motion.

Good luck

i know it is a pain to do it in the car. for what it is worth sometimes it is less stressful to remove the head and go buy or rent a spring compressor. we have a small crow bar at work that we slotted the end on to fit around the spring but it only works on some cars - it all depends on the head design. good luck

derek

  Thanks Guys, I now think I should have lived with the bit of smoke on startup! I've managed to rig up a tool made from an old 1" hole punch, the kind you would use on gasket material or leather. It has a large opening to reach into, and fits onto the top of the valve prety well. I ground off all the sharp edges and  I was able to use a old tire tool for a lever and it worked ok on #1. Tomorrow I'm going to Modify it some more, maybe weld some kind of hinged device to the top so the lever won't slip off. I already spent an hour looking for one lost keeper after it slipped once. Thank God my wife has better eyes than I do, she found it wedged into the spring of the next valve over! Thanks again for the advice, I'll let you know how the tool works and how I make out.