Are you still working on this?
Mach 1 K-member swap, engine removal, and valve spring replacement ("build" thread)
- Thread starter starnsey
- Start date
Yep, just doing a little bit at a time so I don't get burned out. Plus this is almost all new to me so I want to make sure I don't screw anything up.
Got two bolts from Home Depot yesterday to bolt the rear-most mounts of the load leveler to the back of the heads. Think they're Grade 5, do y'all think that's heavy duty enough to take 1/4 of the load of the engine while pulling it out? I doubt the studs that are in the front of the head are any better than Grade 5.
Plan is to pull the engine this upcoming Sunday with the help from a friend of mine. Hopefully it works!
Plan is to pull the engine this upcoming Sunday with the help from a friend of mine. Hopefully it works!
Alright! This is for all the future google searches:
Question: Can you remove a Mach 1 engine from the top with long tube headers and transmission attached?
Answer: Yes!
Alright, lets start off where I left off. Where to attach the engine hoist?
The load leveler has 4 mounting brackets. You can see where I attached them below. I had to buy two (2) M10, grade 5 bolts to bolt into the back of the head. I got them from Lowe's so anyone should be able to find these at their local hardware store and mount them the same way I did. I also got 1" diameter washers to prevent them from slipping through the fairly large hole from the Harbor Freight Load Leveler. The front of the engine already had the studs installed in the heads that I needed as you can see below:
If I had a grinder, I would have cut off the "L" part of this bracket and used the hole in the longer part of the "L", but since I didn't, I made due and it worked fine. I'll probably modify it for the re-installation. This is where the M10 bolts from Lowe's came into play. There's a threaded hole on either head where these fit. They were not being used for anything on my engine at least:
Forgot I needed to remove the clutch cable from the trans. Pretty straight forward: Pull of the cover on the transmission (8 mm bolt) and loosen your firewall adjuster (hopefully you have this already) all the way, remove the clip holding the clutch cable into the transmission and remove the clutch cable. Shouldn't take too long to figure out if you're looking at it. There should be a write-up on Maximum Motorsports website if you have any trouble.
On a few threads, I read about people ripping out a ground wire every time they removed their engine but no one ever posted a picture of where this was. Anyway, here it is:
Driver's side frame rail next to the sway bar mount. Either 8 mm or 10 mm bolt.
Raised the engine hoist and removed the support bar that was holding the engine up. This part was intense because I was totally unsure of whether I did everything properly to mount the engine crane. But success!
Put my floor jack underneath the rear-side of the transmission and removed the four (4) transmission crossmember bolts:
At this point, I realized with the long tube headers, it would make my life easier to remove the steering shaft. One 10 mm bolt later, it was out of the way (super easy). I'm planning on replacing this with a Maximum Motorsports shaft when the time to re-assemble comes. Under the dashboard:
I adjusted the load-leveler until the transmission didn't need support from the floor jack:
Here is a VERY ****ING IMPORTANT TIP for using a load leveler: attach it with the handle towards the rear of the car. I learned the hard way that with the handle towards the front of the car, as you lift the engine crane, it starts to interfere with the arm to the point where you cant turn it without making a whole lot of adjustments and scraping the shit out of the engine hoist. Had to remove the handle and use an adjustable crescent wrench to turn the damn thing. When the engine goes back in, the handle will face the rear rather than the front.
With the load leveler, you can set the engine/transmission at a very extreme angle to remove:
With this picture you can see where the handle of the load leveler will obviously hit the arm of the engine hoist. The handle is removed in this picture:
This was my biggest concern with the long tube headers but I managed to maneuver it so that it didn't hit this little manifold:
Checking clearance on the other side:
Alright, the following pictures show how LITTLE room I had while doing this. I ultimately had to lower the front of the car onto smaller jackstands to bring both the engine and transmission/LT's over the front of the car. If I had a taller garage/garage door, this would not have been an issue. But each time I lowered the front of the car, I gained a few inches. All while adjusting the load leveler to level out the assembly to get over the front:
Show how little room I had. I actually scraped along the garage door as I maneuvered it.
Finally!
Awww yeah.
Separated engine from transmission. Had to remove the passenger side header and starter to figure it out. But it's pretty easy with the engine out of the car!
Finally on the engine stand:
Keep in mind, I have NEVER removed an engine before on ANY car. And I successfully did this the on the first shot (after a few weeks of doing a detailed job on it). Also, I did this entire thing without assistance; so with the right tools, you CAN remove a 4v engine with transmission and long tube headers attached. It just takes a good amount of maneuvering to get it taken care of.
Question: Can you remove a Mach 1 engine from the top with long tube headers and transmission attached?
Answer: Yes!
Alright, lets start off where I left off. Where to attach the engine hoist?
The load leveler has 4 mounting brackets. You can see where I attached them below. I had to buy two (2) M10, grade 5 bolts to bolt into the back of the head. I got them from Lowe's so anyone should be able to find these at their local hardware store and mount them the same way I did. I also got 1" diameter washers to prevent them from slipping through the fairly large hole from the Harbor Freight Load Leveler. The front of the engine already had the studs installed in the heads that I needed as you can see below:
If I had a grinder, I would have cut off the "L" part of this bracket and used the hole in the longer part of the "L", but since I didn't, I made due and it worked fine. I'll probably modify it for the re-installation. This is where the M10 bolts from Lowe's came into play. There's a threaded hole on either head where these fit. They were not being used for anything on my engine at least:
Forgot I needed to remove the clutch cable from the trans. Pretty straight forward: Pull of the cover on the transmission (8 mm bolt) and loosen your firewall adjuster (hopefully you have this already) all the way, remove the clip holding the clutch cable into the transmission and remove the clutch cable. Shouldn't take too long to figure out if you're looking at it. There should be a write-up on Maximum Motorsports website if you have any trouble.
On a few threads, I read about people ripping out a ground wire every time they removed their engine but no one ever posted a picture of where this was. Anyway, here it is:
Driver's side frame rail next to the sway bar mount. Either 8 mm or 10 mm bolt.
Raised the engine hoist and removed the support bar that was holding the engine up. This part was intense because I was totally unsure of whether I did everything properly to mount the engine crane. But success!
Put my floor jack underneath the rear-side of the transmission and removed the four (4) transmission crossmember bolts:
At this point, I realized with the long tube headers, it would make my life easier to remove the steering shaft. One 10 mm bolt later, it was out of the way (super easy). I'm planning on replacing this with a Maximum Motorsports shaft when the time to re-assemble comes. Under the dashboard:
I adjusted the load-leveler until the transmission didn't need support from the floor jack:
Here is a VERY ****ING IMPORTANT TIP for using a load leveler: attach it with the handle towards the rear of the car. I learned the hard way that with the handle towards the front of the car, as you lift the engine crane, it starts to interfere with the arm to the point where you cant turn it without making a whole lot of adjustments and scraping the shit out of the engine hoist. Had to remove the handle and use an adjustable crescent wrench to turn the damn thing. When the engine goes back in, the handle will face the rear rather than the front.
With the load leveler, you can set the engine/transmission at a very extreme angle to remove:
With this picture you can see where the handle of the load leveler will obviously hit the arm of the engine hoist. The handle is removed in this picture:
This was my biggest concern with the long tube headers but I managed to maneuver it so that it didn't hit this little manifold:
Checking clearance on the other side:
Alright, the following pictures show how LITTLE room I had while doing this. I ultimately had to lower the front of the car onto smaller jackstands to bring both the engine and transmission/LT's over the front of the car. If I had a taller garage/garage door, this would not have been an issue. But each time I lowered the front of the car, I gained a few inches. All while adjusting the load leveler to level out the assembly to get over the front:
Show how little room I had. I actually scraped along the garage door as I maneuvered it.
Finally!
Awww yeah.
Separated engine from transmission. Had to remove the passenger side header and starter to figure it out. But it's pretty easy with the engine out of the car!
Finally on the engine stand:
Keep in mind, I have NEVER removed an engine before on ANY car. And I successfully did this the on the first shot (after a few weeks of doing a detailed job on it). Also, I did this entire thing without assistance; so with the right tools, you CAN remove a 4v engine with transmission and long tube headers attached. It just takes a good amount of maneuvering to get it taken care of.
Nice job man. I just installed mine was pretty easy without the tranny installed. Great write up
awesome finally!!
Attachments
So I've removed the driver side valve cover and header so the engine is generally as stripped as it needs to be for this repair. Unfortunately, I left the flywheel on and it's interfering with the engine stand so I need to pull it back off and remove it from the engine. Hopefully I didn't damage it. We'll see I guess.
I've decided to see if I can sell my 106200 cams. If I can, I'll plan to pull them out and swap in some custom grind cams more suited for a power curve that I'd like. If they don't sell, then I plan to try to degree the cams per someone with the proper knowledge's recommendations and see if I can squeeze any more power or make the power band a little more efficient.
After a little bit of research and speaking with the previous owner, I've come to the conclusion that my compression ratio should be 10.4:1. This is based on the fact that MMR told me that the combustion chambers stay at 52cc even when they do the "Stage 3" work on them, which is what the previous owner said was done. The crank has "3.750" stamped onto it leading me to believe that it is definitely a 5.0 stroker and the previous owner said the crankshaft is MMR and I'm guessing the connecting rods are as well. He said they're Manley's, but from all the images I've seen, Manley rods have their logo written on the side whereas my rods have no markings whatsoever.
So between that and looking at the specs for the JE pistons that are in the car, I can only assume the CR is 10.4:1 (based on the specs given on JE's website), which according to some people on various forums, my car is making too little power (at ~390 RWHP STD) for that CR. So I dunno
I've decided to see if I can sell my 106200 cams. If I can, I'll plan to pull them out and swap in some custom grind cams more suited for a power curve that I'd like. If they don't sell, then I plan to try to degree the cams per someone with the proper knowledge's recommendations and see if I can squeeze any more power or make the power band a little more efficient.
After a little bit of research and speaking with the previous owner, I've come to the conclusion that my compression ratio should be 10.4:1. This is based on the fact that MMR told me that the combustion chambers stay at 52cc even when they do the "Stage 3" work on them, which is what the previous owner said was done. The crank has "3.750" stamped onto it leading me to believe that it is definitely a 5.0 stroker and the previous owner said the crankshaft is MMR and I'm guessing the connecting rods are as well. He said they're Manley's, but from all the images I've seen, Manley rods have their logo written on the side whereas my rods have no markings whatsoever.
So between that and looking at the specs for the JE pistons that are in the car, I can only assume the CR is 10.4:1 (based on the specs given on JE's website), which according to some people on various forums, my car is making too little power (at ~390 RWHP STD) for that CR. So I dunno
Had to pull the engine back off the stand to remove the flywheel and then put it back on. After that, I was able to rotate the crank and get a little better look at the internals from the bottom. All cylinder walls are clean and perfect so I think it's safe to assume that the only damage was the broken valve spring.
I tagged all the remaining harness connectors that I could and removed the harnesses from the engine to give myself ample working space.
Bare:
Looks like I already have a head cooling mod from MMR:
The culprit:
Wiring harnesses:
So I think I've decided my plan for the valvetrain is to simply replace all the valvesprings and be done with it. I was thinking about swapping cams or checking the timing of my cams, but at ~390 rwhp N/A, I think I'll be able to live with it's current setup. I've spent the past two years trying to get this thing running right so I should really get it back together ASAP.
Besides that, I'm going to prep and re-spray the engine bay with Dupont Perfect Match DSG. I have next to zero experience painting so I'll probably do some test pieces but really, the engine bays in these cars aren't the best paint jobs anyway. I'm just going to try to do light coats with everything masked. All the reviews on the paint are good so it should be more than enough for my engine bay.
I'm going to rewrap all the wires in soft-braided wire loom. May go with a couple kits from painless. But that should really help with the under-hood appeal. May try to hide some wires if I can as well. But I'm sure as hell not doing a full tuck-job and extending wires. Just want to make it look a little more presentable.
With those things and my wrinkle Ford Blue valve covers coming in in the next couple weeks and the "Powered By Ford" coil covers, my engine bay should be pretty stunning once it's done.
I'm thinking I may save up and toss a McLeod RST clutch to make it more daily-driver friendly as the Spec Stage 2+ is ****ing awful feel-wise.
Anyway, looking forward to getting this back to it's driveable state, especially after a brand new front suspension. Hopefully once it's back together, I'll be able to drive it back up to Dallas and have True Street Motorsports slap on the brand new MAF that was supposed to go on the day the car broke down and FINALLY get the car to run right without stalling. We'll see though. If it continues to stall after that, I may just set it on fire...
I tagged all the remaining harness connectors that I could and removed the harnesses from the engine to give myself ample working space.
Bare:
Looks like I already have a head cooling mod from MMR:
The culprit:
Wiring harnesses:
So I think I've decided my plan for the valvetrain is to simply replace all the valvesprings and be done with it. I was thinking about swapping cams or checking the timing of my cams, but at ~390 rwhp N/A, I think I'll be able to live with it's current setup. I've spent the past two years trying to get this thing running right so I should really get it back together ASAP.
Besides that, I'm going to prep and re-spray the engine bay with Dupont Perfect Match DSG. I have next to zero experience painting so I'll probably do some test pieces but really, the engine bays in these cars aren't the best paint jobs anyway. I'm just going to try to do light coats with everything masked. All the reviews on the paint are good so it should be more than enough for my engine bay.
I'm going to rewrap all the wires in soft-braided wire loom. May go with a couple kits from painless. But that should really help with the under-hood appeal. May try to hide some wires if I can as well. But I'm sure as hell not doing a full tuck-job and extending wires. Just want to make it look a little more presentable.
With those things and my wrinkle Ford Blue valve covers coming in in the next couple weeks and the "Powered By Ford" coil covers, my engine bay should be pretty stunning once it's done.
I'm thinking I may save up and toss a McLeod RST clutch to make it more daily-driver friendly as the Spec Stage 2+ is ****ing awful feel-wise.
Anyway, looking forward to getting this back to it's driveable state, especially after a brand new front suspension. Hopefully once it's back together, I'll be able to drive it back up to Dallas and have True Street Motorsports slap on the brand new MAF that was supposed to go on the day the car broke down and FINALLY get the car to run right without stalling. We'll see though. If it continues to stall after that, I may just set it on fire...
oh yes glad you got them and like them!!!! dat foot though! :shrug:
This is definitely a great build and super well done write up. I will continue to watch the progress. Thank you! So many questions answered here !
Glad that I could be helpful.
Just ordered Brian Tooley valve springs and the Freedom Racing spring compressor tool today. My wrinkle Ford Blue valve covers should be shipping tomorrow or so.
I used Dupont's "perfect match" spray paint to spray the front passenger side engine bay area since it was scuffed to hell from the previous owner doing who knows what. I'm going to use their clear coat as well as it's not nearly as shiny as the opposite side of the bay.
Also haven't made much progress as I was busy making this purchase (the Grand Cherokee - Golf is going up for sale soon):
Just ordered Brian Tooley valve springs and the Freedom Racing spring compressor tool today. My wrinkle Ford Blue valve covers should be shipping tomorrow or so.
I used Dupont's "perfect match" spray paint to spray the front passenger side engine bay area since it was scuffed to hell from the previous owner doing who knows what. I'm going to use their clear coat as well as it's not nearly as shiny as the opposite side of the bay.
Also haven't made much progress as I was busy making this purchase (the Grand Cherokee - Golf is going up for sale soon):
And we're back!
So a few days ago I mocked up the new Maximum Motorsports k-member since I had nothing else to do while waiting for parts or tools or information on how to tackle the valve spring replacement. Don't have many pictures but the only hard part was getting the brake lines to bend out of the way. Turns out if you just shove the front of the k-member in place first, then raise the back up, it generally bends the brake lines just as they show in the MM instructions. This is what that ended up looking like:
I'll still have to square it and everything before it's actually properly installed but I just wanted to do SOME sort of work on the car so this is what I did that day.
NOW! The part you've all been waiting for! How the ****ing **** do you replace valve springs without having to remove the cams/timing chain/timing cover blah blah blah? To answer this I'm going to start a new post below this as a "how to" that will then be copied to all my main forums so people can FINALLY find a write up of how to do this because after hours of searching, literally no one has ever so much as even taken a damn picture of this task and it frustrated me to no end. But after just going at it blind and giving it a shot I got it figured out and got a decent method down.
Continue below to see the write-up:
So a few days ago I mocked up the new Maximum Motorsports k-member since I had nothing else to do while waiting for parts or tools or information on how to tackle the valve spring replacement. Don't have many pictures but the only hard part was getting the brake lines to bend out of the way. Turns out if you just shove the front of the k-member in place first, then raise the back up, it generally bends the brake lines just as they show in the MM instructions. This is what that ended up looking like:
I'll still have to square it and everything before it's actually properly installed but I just wanted to do SOME sort of work on the car so this is what I did that day.
NOW! The part you've all been waiting for! How the ****ing **** do you replace valve springs without having to remove the cams/timing chain/timing cover blah blah blah? To answer this I'm going to start a new post below this as a "how to" that will then be copied to all my main forums so people can FINALLY find a write up of how to do this because after hours of searching, literally no one has ever so much as even taken a damn picture of this task and it frustrated me to no end. But after just going at it blind and giving it a shot I got it figured out and got a decent method down.
Continue below to see the write-up:
HOW TO REPLACE VALVE SPRINGS WITHOUT REMOVING CAMS ON A 4 VALVE 4.6 LITER
(making sure enough key words in there so Google can find it)
This method is likely the best way to remove valve springs while the engine is in the car as well but it's probably 10x harder than doing it on an engine stand like myself. Keep in mind, I've never even stripped an engine down this far before. This is my first time every doing this and I can guarantee this method is about as fast as it gets compared to what a few other people have said getting the job done time-wise.
1.) Buy the following tool:
Valve Spring Compressor - 303-567 303-581 303-452
You can even rent it from them and get some money back when you return it but I bought one so I knew that I was getting one that didn't have any wear on it or anything. This is how the package comes:
Beyond that, there aren't any other instructions, so have fun figuring out the rest bitches! (at least that's what I'm assuming the manufacturer says)
Once assembled, the tool looks like this (this is for the intake valve springs):
2.) Using an air compressor and a leak down tester, put air into the cylinder to prevent the valves from dropping (can do something like 90 PSI or so):
2. a) Here's a little secret: I DIDN'T EVEN ****ING DO THIS PART.
I rented a compression tester from Autozone that should have been perfect except that it had a needle valve on the spark plug side and only let air out of the cylinder and not into the cylinder. Unfortunately, no Autozones, O'Reilly's, or Advance Auto's loan out leak down testers. So if you have one then wonderful, if not, you either buy one or do it the risky way like me:
In order to remove as much compression on the valve springs as possible, you have to bring the piston to top dead center (TDC) anyway! Well from what I've read, this should generally prevent the valves from dropping all the way into the cylinder. Am I going to test this theory? **** no!
I had the luxury of having the oil pan off so I could see from the bottom that the piston was at TDC. If you don't have this luxury, just stick a wire hanger down the spark plug hole and turn the crank until the wire hanger doesn't raise up out of the spark plug hole anymore.
If you don't have the cajones to risk dropping valves, another method is to stuff a bunch of small diameter rope into the spark plug hole into the cylinder and hope that it coils up in the combustion chamber and as you turn the crank and compress the combustion chamber, the rope fills up the void and prevents the valve from dropping when you remove everything.
The thing here is that, at least in my case, the valve stays up with enough friction from the little bushing that the valve slides through in the head (I have no idea what this part is called). So although I could easily push the valve down and pull it up with my fingers, gravity alone was not going to drop my valves into the combustion chambers.
ANYWAY!
3.) Plug up the three oil weep holes (or whatever these are) using shop towels. You can see in the picture below (the three little blue bits of rag):
If you don't know, the "keepers" that hold the retainer on top of the valve springs are insanely tiny and will drop down into these little holes if you drop them (and you will, with 100% certainty, drop them in that area).
4.) Gather necessary tools. You will need:
-Freedom Racing Valve Spring Compressor Tool
-Non-magnetic flat head screw driver
-Magnetic flat head screw driver
-Telescoping pen magnet
-Needle nose pliers
Be careful by keeping the magnetized tools away from the non-magnetic tools. As I found out by accidentally magnetizing my non-magnetic flat head screw driver (spent too much time in contact with the pen magnet) and had to grab another one.
Also, it's probably not a bad idea to have a pair of these:
But I ended up not wearing them because they obscured my view too much and it's hard to see the itty-bitty pieces you'll be messing with. So if you lose an eyeball or two, I officially take no responsibility.
Onto the fun part! Pictures may become a little scarce here as it's hard to do all this shit and also take pictures. I only have two hands, give me a break!
REMOVAL
5.) Using the Freedom Racing tool equipped with the "intake" "crows foot" place the forked "teeth" on the bottom side of the camshaft and place the crows foot on top of the valve spring retainer:
6.) If you're unfamiliar with engines in general and ESPECIALLY unfamiliar with our overhead cam engines, the "follower" (otherwise known as a rocker arm and probably five other definitions depending on application) is not actually mounted with any hardware. It is simply held on by the pressure from the valve tip, cam shaft, and "lifter" (or lash adjuster or five other definitions depending on application :dunno). This video helped in my understanding of it's removal:
How to easily install & remove 4.6L DOHC rocker arms - YouTube
Removing and installing mine wasn't that straight forward but should give you the jist of it.
Anyway, press down on the Freedom Racing tool so the valve spring compresses. This can take a good amount of force. Once you've compressed the spring, the valve is able to drop a little bit and you can reach in and jiggle the "follower" out and set it aside.
Now if your arm is a little tired from this, take a break, otherwise you can move along to the next step while the tool is still holding down the spring.
7.) With the tool compressing the valve spring, hopefully the valve stayed lifted a little bit (this is where the compressed air in the cylinder would be of GREAT assistance), use your pen magnet (as this has the highest magnetivity (sp? - not real word, whatever) and grab the "keeper" (these are two half-circles that hold the retainer on top of the spring as seen below). They're only held on by the pressure from the valve spring putting pressure on the retainer putting pressure on the taper of the keepers. You can see how freakin' tiny they are here:
Put them in a magnetic tray or a plastic ziplock bag or SOMETHING where they will not disappear on you. Otherwise, you will regret it.
8.) Now you can remove the spring and retainer from the valve (and hopefully your valve stays in place and doesn't fall into the combustion chamber, but it shouldn't!
The culprit:
(making sure enough key words in there so Google can find it)
This method is likely the best way to remove valve springs while the engine is in the car as well but it's probably 10x harder than doing it on an engine stand like myself. Keep in mind, I've never even stripped an engine down this far before. This is my first time every doing this and I can guarantee this method is about as fast as it gets compared to what a few other people have said getting the job done time-wise.
1.) Buy the following tool:
Valve Spring Compressor - 303-567 303-581 303-452
You can even rent it from them and get some money back when you return it but I bought one so I knew that I was getting one that didn't have any wear on it or anything. This is how the package comes:
Beyond that, there aren't any other instructions, so have fun figuring out the rest bitches! (at least that's what I'm assuming the manufacturer says)
Once assembled, the tool looks like this (this is for the intake valve springs):
2.) Using an air compressor and a leak down tester, put air into the cylinder to prevent the valves from dropping (can do something like 90 PSI or so):
2. a) Here's a little secret: I DIDN'T EVEN ****ING DO THIS PART.
I rented a compression tester from Autozone that should have been perfect except that it had a needle valve on the spark plug side and only let air out of the cylinder and not into the cylinder. Unfortunately, no Autozones, O'Reilly's, or Advance Auto's loan out leak down testers. So if you have one then wonderful, if not, you either buy one or do it the risky way like me:
In order to remove as much compression on the valve springs as possible, you have to bring the piston to top dead center (TDC) anyway! Well from what I've read, this should generally prevent the valves from dropping all the way into the cylinder. Am I going to test this theory? **** no!
I had the luxury of having the oil pan off so I could see from the bottom that the piston was at TDC. If you don't have this luxury, just stick a wire hanger down the spark plug hole and turn the crank until the wire hanger doesn't raise up out of the spark plug hole anymore.
If you don't have the cajones to risk dropping valves, another method is to stuff a bunch of small diameter rope into the spark plug hole into the cylinder and hope that it coils up in the combustion chamber and as you turn the crank and compress the combustion chamber, the rope fills up the void and prevents the valve from dropping when you remove everything.
The thing here is that, at least in my case, the valve stays up with enough friction from the little bushing that the valve slides through in the head (I have no idea what this part is called). So although I could easily push the valve down and pull it up with my fingers, gravity alone was not going to drop my valves into the combustion chambers.
ANYWAY!
3.) Plug up the three oil weep holes (or whatever these are) using shop towels. You can see in the picture below (the three little blue bits of rag):
If you don't know, the "keepers" that hold the retainer on top of the valve springs are insanely tiny and will drop down into these little holes if you drop them (and you will, with 100% certainty, drop them in that area).
4.) Gather necessary tools. You will need:
-Freedom Racing Valve Spring Compressor Tool
-Non-magnetic flat head screw driver
-Magnetic flat head screw driver
-Telescoping pen magnet
-Needle nose pliers
Be careful by keeping the magnetized tools away from the non-magnetic tools. As I found out by accidentally magnetizing my non-magnetic flat head screw driver (spent too much time in contact with the pen magnet) and had to grab another one.
Also, it's probably not a bad idea to have a pair of these:
But I ended up not wearing them because they obscured my view too much and it's hard to see the itty-bitty pieces you'll be messing with. So if you lose an eyeball or two, I officially take no responsibility.
Onto the fun part! Pictures may become a little scarce here as it's hard to do all this shit and also take pictures. I only have two hands, give me a break!
REMOVAL
5.) Using the Freedom Racing tool equipped with the "intake" "crows foot" place the forked "teeth" on the bottom side of the camshaft and place the crows foot on top of the valve spring retainer:
6.) If you're unfamiliar with engines in general and ESPECIALLY unfamiliar with our overhead cam engines, the "follower" (otherwise known as a rocker arm and probably five other definitions depending on application) is not actually mounted with any hardware. It is simply held on by the pressure from the valve tip, cam shaft, and "lifter" (or lash adjuster or five other definitions depending on application :dunno). This video helped in my understanding of it's removal:
How to easily install & remove 4.6L DOHC rocker arms - YouTube
Removing and installing mine wasn't that straight forward but should give you the jist of it.
Anyway, press down on the Freedom Racing tool so the valve spring compresses. This can take a good amount of force. Once you've compressed the spring, the valve is able to drop a little bit and you can reach in and jiggle the "follower" out and set it aside.
Now if your arm is a little tired from this, take a break, otherwise you can move along to the next step while the tool is still holding down the spring.
7.) With the tool compressing the valve spring, hopefully the valve stayed lifted a little bit (this is where the compressed air in the cylinder would be of GREAT assistance), use your pen magnet (as this has the highest magnetivity (sp? - not real word, whatever) and grab the "keeper" (these are two half-circles that hold the retainer on top of the spring as seen below). They're only held on by the pressure from the valve spring putting pressure on the retainer putting pressure on the taper of the keepers. You can see how freakin' tiny they are here:
Put them in a magnetic tray or a plastic ziplock bag or SOMETHING where they will not disappear on you. Otherwise, you will regret it.
8.) Now you can remove the spring and retainer from the valve (and hopefully your valve stays in place and doesn't fall into the combustion chamber, but it shouldn't!
The culprit:
INSTALLATION
What? You thought that was hard? HA! You haven't even started yet! Fool! You should have just taken your car to the shop and paid someone else to do it!
1.) Place the shiny new valve spring over the valve (narrower diameter side upwards) and the spring retainer on top of the valve spring. Hopefully, your valve is ALL THE WAY up. If it is not and you're doing the ballsy, nothing-holding-the-valve-up method like myself, you can easily grab the valve stem and pull it up to the top.
2.) Using the same assembly of the Freedom Racing tool (intake or exhaust crows foot extension), place the tool in the same spot you did to remove the spring and push down on the tool the compress the spring. You may have to do this a couple of times if the spring/retainer grabs the little recessions in the valve stem that grip the keepers and pushes the valve down (once again, another reason why it'd be nice to have the compressed air holding everything in place. OH WELL!)
3.) With the spring compressed under the force of the tool, grab the very TIP of one of the keepers with needle nose pliers and try to place it into the grooves of the valve stem that hold them in place. You want to use gravity to assist you in this (i.e. place the keeper on the upper-most side of the valve so that it rests on top of the stem - like someone straddling a horse....or something). Once the ONE keeper is in place and properly seated, you can release pressure on the tool as the single keeper will keep everything in place while you take a break and contemplate smashing your face into a wall...err...I mean get prepared for the second keeper.
You can see here the single keeper holding on the spring and retainer by itself:
If you look closely, you can also barely see the grooves in the valve stem that the keeper grabs onto.
4.) THIS IS THE STEP IN WHICH A LITTLE TRICK IS USED TO MAKE YOUR USE OF TIME MUCH MORE EFFICIENT SO PAY ATTENTION!!!
If the spring compressor tool is not still in place, put it back in place. For the most part, it should stay where its at even when you're not putting pressure on it. Take the other keeper using either your fingers, the needle nose pliers, or the weak-magnet flat head screw driver and place it opposite of the keeper that is already installed. Using the NON-magnetic screw driver, hold it in that position while you get ready to compress the spring like so:
NOTE: If you're having trouble here, try compressing the spring and using the non-magnetic screw driver to rotate the installed keeper to the bottom side of the stem so you can utilize gravity once again to help hold the un-installed keeper in place.
5.) Using one hand to apply pressure to the un-installed keeper using your non-magnetic screw driver, use your other hand to compress the valve spring using the tool. As the spring slowly compresses, guide the un-installed keeper down the stem with the screw driver and it should more or less fall into place once the spring is compressed enough. Once it falls into it's appropriate grooves, release pressure from the tool and VOILA!
Brand new spring held on by retainer and keepers!
6.) Re-install the follower going backwards of whatever you did to remove it. For me this generally followed the video posted before with a little more fiddling around. At one point I even had both keepers fall out of a just-re-installed spring and had to start all over again. Not cool! But you can pretty much guarantee it'll happen to you so just be patient! All back together:
The exhaust valves are generally the same procedures with a few minor differences. A) Gravity becomes even more helpful here since the valves are closer to parallel to the ground so use this to your advantage when installing the keepers! You can even use the magnetic screw driver with the tip holding the keeper in a "superman" position (keeper grooves facing straight down) and lay it on top of the valve stem and as you slowly release the tool, the spring retainer should grab the keeper and overcome the strength of the magnetic screw driver and hold it in place.
I greatly hope this write-up helps someone else because it was incredibly frustrating reading multiple threads about people using this tool but no one ever saying HOW they used it. So through my trial and error, I hope I'm able to make someone's life easier in the future.
As stated before, I've never dug this far into an engine before and this was my first time doing this, so if you've got the drive and mechanical ability, you can definitely do it. It ended up taking me about 1-1/2 to 2 hours to do one cylinder (4 valves) and a lot of that time was figuring out the easiest way to get it done. I still have 28 more valves to go (dear lord) but I'm now confident enough to be in good spirits about the rest of the project. I'm sure I'll run into some troubles doing the other valves but I believe I tackled one of the harder cylinders (front most).
Anyway, good luck! If you have any questions feel free to post them or PM me and I'll try to give the best answers I can.
What? You thought that was hard? HA! You haven't even started yet! Fool! You should have just taken your car to the shop and paid someone else to do it!
1.) Place the shiny new valve spring over the valve (narrower diameter side upwards) and the spring retainer on top of the valve spring. Hopefully, your valve is ALL THE WAY up. If it is not and you're doing the ballsy, nothing-holding-the-valve-up method like myself, you can easily grab the valve stem and pull it up to the top.
2.) Using the same assembly of the Freedom Racing tool (intake or exhaust crows foot extension), place the tool in the same spot you did to remove the spring and push down on the tool the compress the spring. You may have to do this a couple of times if the spring/retainer grabs the little recessions in the valve stem that grip the keepers and pushes the valve down (once again, another reason why it'd be nice to have the compressed air holding everything in place. OH WELL!)
3.) With the spring compressed under the force of the tool, grab the very TIP of one of the keepers with needle nose pliers and try to place it into the grooves of the valve stem that hold them in place. You want to use gravity to assist you in this (i.e. place the keeper on the upper-most side of the valve so that it rests on top of the stem - like someone straddling a horse....or something). Once the ONE keeper is in place and properly seated, you can release pressure on the tool as the single keeper will keep everything in place while you take a break and contemplate smashing your face into a wall...err...I mean get prepared for the second keeper.
You can see here the single keeper holding on the spring and retainer by itself:
If you look closely, you can also barely see the grooves in the valve stem that the keeper grabs onto.
4.) THIS IS THE STEP IN WHICH A LITTLE TRICK IS USED TO MAKE YOUR USE OF TIME MUCH MORE EFFICIENT SO PAY ATTENTION!!!
If the spring compressor tool is not still in place, put it back in place. For the most part, it should stay where its at even when you're not putting pressure on it. Take the other keeper using either your fingers, the needle nose pliers, or the weak-magnet flat head screw driver and place it opposite of the keeper that is already installed. Using the NON-magnetic screw driver, hold it in that position while you get ready to compress the spring like so:
NOTE: If you're having trouble here, try compressing the spring and using the non-magnetic screw driver to rotate the installed keeper to the bottom side of the stem so you can utilize gravity once again to help hold the un-installed keeper in place.
5.) Using one hand to apply pressure to the un-installed keeper using your non-magnetic screw driver, use your other hand to compress the valve spring using the tool. As the spring slowly compresses, guide the un-installed keeper down the stem with the screw driver and it should more or less fall into place once the spring is compressed enough. Once it falls into it's appropriate grooves, release pressure from the tool and VOILA!
Brand new spring held on by retainer and keepers!
6.) Re-install the follower going backwards of whatever you did to remove it. For me this generally followed the video posted before with a little more fiddling around. At one point I even had both keepers fall out of a just-re-installed spring and had to start all over again. Not cool! But you can pretty much guarantee it'll happen to you so just be patient! All back together:
The exhaust valves are generally the same procedures with a few minor differences. A) Gravity becomes even more helpful here since the valves are closer to parallel to the ground so use this to your advantage when installing the keepers! You can even use the magnetic screw driver with the tip holding the keeper in a "superman" position (keeper grooves facing straight down) and lay it on top of the valve stem and as you slowly release the tool, the spring retainer should grab the keeper and overcome the strength of the magnetic screw driver and hold it in place.
I greatly hope this write-up helps someone else because it was incredibly frustrating reading multiple threads about people using this tool but no one ever saying HOW they used it. So through my trial and error, I hope I'm able to make someone's life easier in the future.
As stated before, I've never dug this far into an engine before and this was my first time doing this, so if you've got the drive and mechanical ability, you can definitely do it. It ended up taking me about 1-1/2 to 2 hours to do one cylinder (4 valves) and a lot of that time was figuring out the easiest way to get it done. I still have 28 more valves to go (dear lord) but I'm now confident enough to be in good spirits about the rest of the project. I'm sure I'll run into some troubles doing the other valves but I believe I tackled one of the harder cylinders (front most).
Anyway, good luck! If you have any questions feel free to post them or PM me and I'll try to give the best answers I can.
something i dont want to do! looks like you are making progress though!
2 more cylinders down! Only 20 valve springs left to go.
Any luck on the 20 valve springs that were left?
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