I haven't been totally idle.....

[Divided he ad]

Honestly


Just a few pic's of something I threw out over a few hours for a mate. (seriously the only marking out was the pen you see on the bits everything was made to fit)



Ok, a little back story first....

I have a lot of friends with various versions of the fast Ford RS variety cars, one of them has a Sierra Sapphire Cosworth and a rather unfortunate habit of finding major faults with his car 

He had to buy a "reconditioned" cylinder head for it a few months back after his one of his camshafts snapped due to the cylinder head being warped after some aluminium welding had been done on it before he owned it the "new" head cost nearly a £1000.00!   It was fitted by himself and another of my mechahacanicing friends....

The so called "reconditioned" head had to have 9 M8 and 1 M6 re-coils fitted before it could be used!! Not too impressed!  But in the end it was on and all appeared well....



Now onto the reason for this post ("Hooray" they all say!)

He now needs the valve stem oil seals replacing because they are letting oil past them.....They were probably never changed in the so called "recondition"! "So just change them" you think?  Well erm, no.

You see ordinarily the head has to come back off the vehicle..... There are comercially available tools for on car valve spring removal. But not being sure if they would fit/work on this car and not being made of money, £100.00 plus seems a bit steep for the bit of kit required (to be honest £20.00 would be after the huge outlay he has had so far!!)

So he supplied me with his old head and I made this out of a pile of my old scrap for a very specific job 

To attach it to the head....









To compress the spring.....a 25mm mild steel bar.











Add a bit of flat bar with a hook at one end and a hole for the pivot drilled in it and.....








No expensive metals were harmed in the making of this tool, only the washers and the 25mm Dia bar had been purchased a long time ago!
(all other bits were once part of garage doors  )




Well, I just thought I'd make sure you didn't think I was idle!    (it's being tested tomorrw morning about 11:00!! )



I would have been in the 'shop last night and tonight making bits 'n' bobs if is wasn't for the fact that (I should be changing my sign in for "Dividedthumb"?) on Thursday I sliced down through my right thumb nail and top of my thumb with a very sharp knife.....      It makes it a little hard to hold things!!   







Ralph.

[bogstandard]

Typical, cutting your own fingers off, just to make excuses for not posting in a while.

The lengths some people will go to.

Joking aside Ralph, I do hope all is OK.

But on the other hand (pun intended), I would definitely be beneficial to have six digits on one hand, you can pick up one more bottle of beer than everyone else.


Nice tool you have made there, I just hope it works as well as you have designed and made it.


John

[Darren]

Nice going there Ralph, do let us see it in action when the time comes   

[DavesWimshurst]

Ralph,
Nice tool, it;s great when you can help your friends out.
When I cut my fingers like that I call it joining the digital divide!  Last time it happened was from leaving a guard off of my band saw.
Hoping it heals ok.
Dave

[sbwhart]

Hi Ralph

   we should have one of these with a bandaged thumb 

Joking aside, I hope it heals quickly for you and doesn't give too much discomfort.

Nice job with that spring compressor, be interested to see how it works I think I've got it figured but just in case a pic would be nice.

Have fun

Stew

[Darren]

How did you do the curved bits? 

[Twinsquirrel]

Super job Ralph!

My old dad used to use a similar tool on 944's but with the head still mounted on the block, keeping the valves in place by applying compressed air into the cylinder through the plug aperture with the piston at TDC... Never seen it done that way before or since but I suppose it has it's place.

Again super nice job

David
(the lurker)

[Divided he ad]

Right..... A few answers,



My thumb is really annoying and has caused me nothing but pain since I did it! I caught the split nail yesterday and it all started gushing again..... I was well chuffed!!!
But I'll get over it..... It's mostly annoying!  (band saw Dave.... Sounds much worse than my knife blade!!!)


Darren,

Curved bits?  some specific pointing at the curved bit might help!  I have a tool cut for curves on the mill if it's the bit on the carriers you are on about? 


David.... Nice to see you here again    This was designed as you will soon see for "on the car" work, I have used similar in the past so knew it could be done 

The air coupler was supplied to my mates too, but was not needed, put the piston to the top and the valves are so close in the cossie that they just sit on it! 



Now for the final bits.....


A small modification.



Needed to avoud the injector fuel rail and the turbo.  This was discussed well in advance to the job, but since I hadn't got the engine in the car to make the tool to then it was made with the flat bar and would be altered if needed on the day.


And this is how it works....



The tap is to release the collets from the cap, then a magnet is used to retreive the little collets. The tool is removed and the cap and spring are removed using the magnet.
The valve stem seals are then removed and the new ones drifted onto the valve guides.
The spring, cap and collets are then re-fitted and the tool is gently raised till it is all safely where it should be.
You don't want to rush it and hear a ping followed by a distant rattle as the collet settles into it's new home in your workshop shelving or worse into the oil ways on the engine and into the oil sump !!!


This worked a treat and saved the cost of a new cylinder head set (£180!!) and the hours of labour involved in removing the inlet and exhaust manifolds as well as the entire head and then still having to strip all the springs etc out to replace the seals!


My mate is very, very happy with the whole outcome..... And the tool will be talked about at the RS club and lads will know where to come if issues develop with their stem seals letting smoke out of the exhaust 





Ralph.


There are a couple of other vids..... Not showing too much more but would need the sound dubbing off....... Mechanics do like colourful language   

[sbwhart]

Thats a real nice job Darren.

 

I can remember watching my Dad doing something symilar with an old side valve engine, but with the head off.

Stew

[Darren]

It's Ralph Peter, not Simon 

[Darren]

Thanks Ralph,

It was those very exact bits I was referring to.

Next time you use that cutter can you show a pic....ta....

Fantastic job there btw, I have heard of these tools but never seen one before


Not even your version....

[sbwhart]

Thats a real nice job Darren. Ralph

 
Stew

Bugger 

[Brass_Machine]

Nice job Ralph! Love to see that as I have built (no, really modified) a valve spring compressor for bike heads. I want to redo it... That gives me some idea...

....
My old dad used to use a similar tool on 944's but with the head still mounted on the block, ....

Know my way around the 944 heads pretty well. Have had 3 of those things (2 NA and 1 turbo). Except for the waterpump and belt issues, I like them.

Eric

[CrewCab]

The air coupler was supplied to my mates too, but was not needed, put the piston to the top and the valves are so close in the cossie that they just sit on it! 

That's the bit I was waiting for, I was having trouble figuring out how to retain the valves in place 

Nice work Ralph, did the valve stem oil seals cure the problem btw.

CC

[Divided he ad]

Glad you guys like it 


Hi Stew    Glad you got the name thing sorted.....

Darren,      Nice one!

CC,
It's a simple idea that I basically robbed borrowed and re-made!  If it helps some people then it was certainly worth making the post.
The air in the cylinder bit works well.... I've used that before on the old pinto engines. 60-100 psi on a 1" valve face will certainly keep it where it's meant to be!!   

Eric,

You owned 3 porkers!!!!  You must have earned too much?!?! 
Don't forget to post up any/all piccys of modified tooling..... It might help others? 


The results will be known to me tonight at the club meeting..... Should be ok, the so called  "reconditioners" put 2 exhaust seals on the inlet valves of number 4 cylinder 
Exhaust valve stems are (in the engineering world of measurments) quite a bit larger than the inlet. Once the new springyness (erm, yer, it's a word!  ) had worn off they failed to seal and allowed oil to be drawn down on overrun..... Dumb reconditioners!!



Still, all will be known tonight 


Got to get gone now, my lift arrives at 18:30!





Ralph.

[CrewCab]

the old pinto engines.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh  ............... technology I can understand, though to be fair the slightly older Kent ohv engines were more my era favourites

CC

[Darren]

Ralph,

I was so impressed with that valve tool you made that I showed the missus tonight and explained the y's and hows......pointless of course....

A dead impressed Darren.....

[Divided he ad]

Ok, so I left this post for a while.....

I've been very busy.... Doing all manner of summery type things (yer summery is a word. it don't not look right but it's in dictionaries etc  )

The job was a success.... It has cured the most violent bursts of smoke and only a bit is left.... Probably residue in the exhaust?

Still.... it did the prescribed job and that's a result 


Oh, and thanks for the thumb well wishes.... it's now healed up but still a little tender  The nail is a pain, snagging everything, I'll just have to wait for it to grow out!


Now, a little extra for Darren....

Next time you use that cutter can you show a pic....ta....

I'll not be using it for a while, well I don't have plans to so here's a pic of it when used on the frame and the base of the Baldy engine I made.

The standard radius. (it's a 1/4" radius cutter.... They're silly money.... but e-blag helped with the slightly cheeper 1/8th one I got )


Or lower it a fraction more and move it into the work the same amount and you get an attractive step look (Thanks Bogs )





Hope that helps?







Ralph.

[bogstandard]

Way   but just a reply to Ralphs little display above.

This sort of tooling can be very expensive, so I have played about with the el cheapo sets of tungsten wood router bits to very good effect. DON'T try them on tuff stuff, but for ali and brass, they give very good results after playing a little with speeds and feeds.
Actually they came up again the other evening when Stew and myself were gasbagging in my shop. I showed him how I was considering how to hold them in a boring bar setup, and use them for turning nice profiles on the lathe.

Loadsa tungsten profilers, for lotsa little cash.

Bogs

[Darren]

Yes I think I did a post on these somewhere once, I bought a handful for about 20p each.

I did use one to make a very small boring bar for my SS crank which worked well. But I wouldn't get any more adventurous on harder materials as John suggests.

But for alloy I had quite acceptable results.....

[NickG]

Ralph,

Did I read right that you pressurised the cylinder to stop the valve dropping in? How did you keep the spring compressed whilst you fished the collets out?

My grandad made a similar thing many moons ago I would imagine and I still use that one, it's for when the head is off though. I hold the lever under my arm (ouch) so both hands are free and use small magnetic screwdriver to get the collets out. Quite fiddley but once you get used to it it's not bad!

Nice job, well worth doing so you don't have to take the head off.

Nick

[Divided he ad]

Hi Nick,

Yep, you read right.... There are two methods;

1/ put the piston up to the top of the cylinder (use a long screwdriver down the plug hole as a TDC gauge) and the valve rests on that.

2/ put air adapter into the spark plug hole and pressurise the cylinder (piston must be at BDC else the engine spins over when air is applied) we would usually use 60-100psi when done in the garages I've worked at, a compression test will give much higher than that so you're not going to damage anything.
The valves rarely move as 60-100 pounds of pressure on the valve face is a fair old push!  (if they fall in.... You're just going to have to do it the way you used to!!)


The spring (once the crack with the hammer has released the collets) has no effect on the valve stem, so you just have one guy pulling on the lever and another fishing out the collets with a magnet on a stick, all the other stuff comes off without putting any pressure on the valve stem.

The re-fit,  You just have to be carefull to line the spring and cap up correctly and then push down making sure not to hit the valve stem, re-fit the collets (I use a non-magnetic screwdriver with a blob of grease on the end. It holds the collet well and is removable without accidentally taking the collet back up or moving the first one you fitted  ) and gently raise the tool allowing the spring to clamp the collets and valve into place.


It's an old idea, draper etc  make kits using the same idea, just £100.00+ 



Glad you like the job 



worked a treat





Ralph.

[NickG]

Thanks Ralph, I just couldn't see in the video how the spring remained compressed, couldn't see the extra pair of hands which baffled me!