Well that was fun... not. Those heavy duty valve springs are huge, I didn't realize how much bigger they were than stock. Cylinders 1 through 4 went pretty easy, but 5 & 6 made my hands feel like they were shoved through a blender. I was happy to see I actually had already bought the right valve spring compressor tool about 3 years ago. Took a whole evening to do it but well worth it after one drive, that thing screams and just loves going into the redline (or maybe it was my foot doing that). Now on to the next round detrimental drive line debauchery, muahahahaha.

 

Sweet job satburn!

did u do all 12 of them? what procedure did you use? Did u swap out keepers and retainers as well, or just springs? Inquiry minds wanna know

Rick

 

Kept the keeper and retainers for now. After talking with Piers "we" didn't feel it was quite necessary yet. Got the kit from Piers which included all 12 valve springs and 2 little ones for the governor. I used the procedure included with the kit which was to roll the engine over using the alternator nut and watch for an intake valve coming up ( in my case was #3 ), cylinders are in pairs working from the middle out. So, 3&4 are a set, 2&5 and 1&6. You roll the engine until the intake valve comes up and you just see the exhaust start to open, STOP. Now, it's mate cylinder is @ TDC (#4), so you can begin swapping springs. Repeat this procedure for remaining cyinders.

Tricks: Screw the new valve spring into the spring compressor until you can't turn it anymore, then turn the spring compressor and compress the spring. Makes getting the keepers in easier. Also to get the back springs to release from the keepers you can't just give the compressor tool a "pop" since the cowl is right there. I layed the open end of a box end wrench on top of the retainer so that the inside of the jaw was sitting on it. Then gave the wrench a whack with a small hammer. Worked well for me. A magnetic pick up tool (pen style) is a life saver on the project along with a pair of small needle nose pliers.

 

i have the 2 little springs to do the 3k to 4k conversion..... is the conversion as easy as i would think? take the cap off like when i did the 3k kit.... instakk little springs, button back up and your done? i've tried to find the instructions..... havne't found any yet....

 

Yeah thats the way to do it. Watch for valve overlap on one cyl., and then do the valve springs on it's companion.