Pulling heads soon!

[LJRuddy]

Been working on a 3.0 to swap into an MTX Gen 2 and i have found that an exhaust valve is stuck halfway open. The valve will open further but it just will not close past halfway. The engine is low milage, around 65,000 to be exact. I was told that the valve is stuck because the engine had sat for so long (9 months). I finished doing an overall clean up on it which included cleaning up the bottom end, putting on some new seals etc etc. There was no sludge in the pan at all and the heads had a faint golden color to them similar to fresh oil. It has had a 60k done to it before it was put into storage. My question for you all is when i go to pull the heads, short of new HGs, will i need to replace valve stem seals too since i am going to be messing around with them? A few of the valves look like there is a fair amount of carbon built on them as well as some minor surface rust. I guess i should mention that the engine is a non smoker during startup or normal running conditions as of last spring. If i do need new stem seals, how hard are they do replace? Any writeups for those?

Thanks for the help!

 

[93superSHO]

Okay, IMHO. I would have the heads rebuilt by a shop. If you were planning on tearing them completely down already. The bucket could have dried up and is caugh. You can get away with replacing the seals yourself and it is not all that hard. You can get the seals at RCM automotive for around $40.00 I believe. If you do this MAKE SURE you put each valve back in the EXACT seat it came from. I personally would go the mahine shop route, they will resurface them, clean up the seats, install new stem seals(they are NOT reusable ie- once you remove the valve from the head, the valve stem seal is junk, they should check the springs for compression pressure(they have to be within spec-Max. load 537.4 N(120.8 lbs) @ 30.2mm (1.19in)- set load 188.3 N(42.3 lbs.) @ 30.2mm (1.52 in.), they will also do a pressure test on the head for cracks, and do a vacum test after final assembly to ensure you won't have a leaking valve. You should be able to install the cams, tensioners, buckets, shims, etc. If after all that you do not want to go thru the hassle there is a set of 3.2 and 3.0 rebuilt heads on ebay(search ebay stores under TAURUS SHO) 3.2-$250 and 3.0 $200

 

[LJRuddy]

And how much would taking it to a machine shop set me back? Keep in mind i am on a limited budget and i dont have much budget.

 

[93superSHO]

Machine shops will generally run $150-$400. If you know the history of this engine and it ran fine when pulled you can try this, Take some new motor oil and put some on that valve spring and bucket and make sure the cam lobe is 180 degrees from the shim/bucket and take a rubber or plastic tipped hammer and tap around the bucket to pop it loose. This is what I would do rather than spend a couple hundered bucks when you are on a budget(I wasn't sure if there was or not) It sounds as though this engine was taken care of otherwise I would go with the machine shop route(money permiting)