How To: Remove Valve Seals In and Out of the Car Without Spring Compressor

Rokusek · Feb 16, 2016

Ok gents so here's what I got,

I first placed some napkins under the seals/valves I was going to be playing with like so:

From there I grabbed a 3/8's ratchet with a 6" extension and a 15mm crows foot and set it up like so:

Then I placed the crows foot on top of the retainer (correct me if I'm wrong in the names) like this:

I then used the ratchet crows foot combo to compress the spring and retainer and used a small magnetic flat head to grab the keepers like so:

In this step above be sure that the keepers are spun so the halves face are perpendicular to how the cams sit otherwise the one closest to the ratchet will get stuck and you might just have it pop out and smack you in the face as I did... Soo keep that in mind.

I then pulled out the retainer and the spring and you'll have just the seal left to remove:

From there I took my small magnetic flat head and placed it between the lip of the seal and the lip on the machined surface where the seal sits and twisted to help free the seal and make for an easy removal:

I then used a long set of needle nose to remove the seal completely:

I then simply slid the valves out of the guides and this is what you have left over:

Now this was super easy with the head sitting on my coffee table, if it where still in the car there is one of three ways that I have read to keep the valves in place while you do this.

1.) Place that specific cylinder at TDC and allow the valve to sit on the piston, this is what seams to the easiest way though I do not feel comfortable letting the valve drop onto the piston like that. Plus you may have to compress the spring more this way as the valve will be siting lower in the guide then if you do it one of the other ways.

2.) Remove the spark plug in that cylinder, have the piston halfway to TDC position and use 1/4" thick wax coated rope or climbing rope and push it into the combustion chamber through the hole for the spark plug twisting it only in one direction to allow it to coil up on top of the piston. You only need a 1' or 1.5' of rope, there isn't a lot of room in there.
Once this is done then soon the crank to get the piston as close to TDC as possible, place the car in 5th or 6th gear to keep the crank from spinning. Then move forward with the steps I listed above for spring and seal removal.

Or 3.) place cylinder at TDC, put car in 5th or 6th gear. Use a compression adapter for you air hose to pressurize the cylinder. Only pressurize to 20-40psi as this is more than enough to keep the valve from falling. And press on.

Now these last three steps are all performed with the head still in the car (just making sure I say that again) And this WILL require you to break timing and remove the intake/exhaust cam (whichever you are replacing) along with the timing cover. So you will need to buy a new crank bolt, 3 crank friction washers and a cam bolt with friction washer.

Notes and other things to keep in mind:

You can also use a O2 sensor socket to remove the valve spring, but keep in mind that with either the crows foot or O2 sensor socket it is going to probably be a two man job to reinstall the locks. Those bitches aint easy to put back in with one hand. An actual valve spring compressor makes it way easier.

ADDING VIDEO OF INSTALLATION OUT OF CAR:

Rokusek valve seal replacement - YouTube