Continuing to Press

Tool problem solved

UPDATED 070715

Turns out Sears had the valve spring compressor I needed. The only problem was, the jaws on it wouldn't work without some sort of insert to press the spring down and allow retrieval of the valve spring keepers. Taking the advice of some knowledgeable Jag owners, I sawed off a short section of 3/4" PVC pipe to serve as the adapter. In order to improve access to the keepers, I spent a few minutes with a drill and a file to make a pair of slots in the insert. It isn't pretty, but it works:A marvel of shadetree engineering

Thus armed, I had an hour before going to work to tackle as many of the valves as I could. I managed to remove all of the exhaust valves before bagging and tagging them. The cardboard layout template I made yesterday was only a temporary solution before I went to the store and bought several boxes of Ziploc bags. The Winn-Dixie cashier must have thought I was getting ready to bag a batch of crack or something.

Using the valve spring remover was awkward at first, but once I got a knack for seating the jaws and insert on each valve and spring, it progressed pretty quickly:Behold my works, ye mighty, and despair

That's all the progress for today. Tomorrow I'll tackle the intake valves, and then I'm going to turn my attention back to the engine compartment and the mort of work that awaits me there.

Update 15 JUL: After yet another round of afternoon thunderstorms, I managed to finish disassembly. Tomorrow I'll be looking for a machine shop to hot-tank the head and get the rest of the scale and carbon out. There's enough corrosion on the head near the water passages to worry me a little, but none of it is near any of the gasket sealing surfaces. After the head comes back from the machine shop, I'm going to fill in the corroded spots with high-temp epoxy. With a polishing bit on the end of a drill, I was able to get most of the carbon deposits off the combustion chambers; next item on the agenda is getting the crap off the valves. The intakes all turned out OK, but the exhaust valves will be a bit of a challenge.

One final note from the Great Cylinder Head Field-Strip of 2007: All the valve guide oil seals on the exhaust side disintegrated, but all the oil seals on the intake side were still as pliable as the day they went in back in 1990.