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So lest there be any doubt who wrote the above, I've reposted it with my name where it asks for name, instead of the title I meant to give the post:
Plus as a bonus, an essay!
Well, at last I have all 16 seals off.
I ended up using a pair of needle nose Vise Grips, 9LN, (for 9" long nose), ground down at backs of upper and lower jaws to about 5/16" far enough back that they'd go down in from a couple angles (lower jaw towards cam bearing seat, and lower jaw towards middle valley). Then by the last one I'd worked up a technique: squeeze down on the seal with enough crush, and twist back and forth a bit while tugging up. Then move it 90 degrees and do the same, and on that second set it pulled off. It was taking multiple re-sets until the last two.
To protect the lifter bores I used a sleeve made of about a 4"x2 1/2" piece cut out of the flat side of a gallon milk jug, curled up and dropped down in. Could be higher to also protect the cam bearing journals but would get in the way.
I only ground the vise grips down after getting 10 seals off the hard way, with a pair of modified needle nose pliers. Frustration city.
My first intent was to buy stem seal pliers locally. First tried Harbor Freight, where the only thing that came close was a 3-plier set of hose pulling pliers, long reach neeedle nose with ends bent 90 degrees and curved into arcs, to reach onto and grab hoses to twist em off. I wasn't sure the smallest would close tight enough and didn't want to pay for all three and own some gimmicks I'd never needed before and wouldn't use.
Next I went to Sears Roebuck and I've gotta say I wanted to cry. How have the mighty fallen. Their once dazzling display of sockets etc. is gone. (Shoplifting? Or too much trouble to restock and not enough sales?) Even the big display of auto-specific tools including Lisle stuff they had three years ago is shrunk way down. They had nothing I could use unless I ordered online.
Finally I hit up our local NAPA which is a big warehouse distribution center for Maine and I think up into NH and Vt. too. Their machine shop is closed, I found out, has been for five years. Only one automotive machine shop in town, and two more out 20 miles into the country.
And I asked about stem seal pliers there and the guy said he doesn't think they have them. (!)
Next called the machine shop and he says he just uses various regular pliers, though he knows there are some special pullers, including one with fingers and a collar that drops around them to hold them in on the seal.
So I went back to try myself. First after finding a pic on here, I took a crappy pair of Chinese needle nose I'd been embarrassed to own, and filed into their soft jaws notches to match the outer profile of the seals, one of which I did eventually manage to tug off.
Even though eventually I got the notches to perfectly match the silhouette, I found the valve guide and the seal are about the same diameter and the pliers can't clamp on and get in below the seal. So most of my filing was useless.
The old seals on the head have a maddening profile, no sharp edges to grab, only a bevel up to a slightly fatter band near the top of the steel shell. The new ones have been made with a hat-brim-like sharp edge on that shell and would be easy to pull off if the time ever came.
I dubbed with the notched needle nose, slipping off over and over, pinching my fingers, making me turn the air blue, till I had all the intake seals off and two of the exhausts. But progress was so slow it was absurd and I finally modified the vise grips and made quicker work of it.
Those vise grips were never any good for anything tough anyways and will still be fine for whatever I have used them for.
What is the world I've known coming to? The machine shop owner said about the only work he gets now is for special industrial motors.
He will get to plane my head, once I lap the valves. It has warp, domed up about .015 right in the middle between two and three, out about .008 near the sides of bores alongside 2 and 3, almost flat at each side. Tried the top deck and found it dead flat and cam journals perfectly in line too. Miked it and it's never been machined before.
posted by 71.173.7...
, Sun, 31 May 2015 03:17:36
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