I did cylinders 1, 6, and 5. I quit before working on cylinder 8 so I can start on it fresh, tomorrow.

The TDC method is the way to go; the valves only drop down about 3/8 of an inch. After changing 1 and 6, I turned the crank approximately 90* and sort of held my breath before taking the first spring off cylinder 5, but the valve moved very little meaning that the 90* crank rotation put me right at TDC. I can't imagine having to wrestle with an air compressor and a fitting when this is so incredibly easy.

I managed to drop one of the locks but lucked-out when I spotted it sitting on top of the header pipe.

I'm using the Larry tool and it's working AWESOME. By the time I got to the sixth and last spring for the day, I had worked-out a system. First I thread the stud into the rocker bolt hole about 5 or 6 turns, next put the hole of the LT over the stud and make sure that V part of the LT is resting correctly on the stock retainer; thread the stud nut down as far as I can by hand, then slowly begin compressing the spring with a 1/4" ratchet. When the locks are loose, use the pen magnet to pull one of them out. To get the second lock out I've had to slowly compress the spring a little more, and the second lock comes right out with the pen magnet. Next, decompress the stock spring and remove it with the retainer, pull the LT off the stud, seat the new spring and retainer, put the LT on the new spring and retainer, and hand tighten the stud nut as far as it will go. When I start compressing the new spring I hold it between my fingers to keep the valve centered. I compress the spring until it seems like the lock might fit in the gap between the valve and the spring. Then put a dab of grease on the lock, attach it to the pen magnet, and use the index finger to guide the magnet end and lock into the gap between the spring and valve. When you use your fingertip, or sharp-pointed tool (I use an awl), to seat the lock you feel and hear it snap into place (the wide end of the lock goes on top). Then I push and rotate the lock so it's at the top, place the second lock the same way as the first, and finally slowly decompress the spring making sure that the locks are staying seated.

 

Good write up. Thanks. Will be doing this chore very soon too. That's got to be a little nerve racking trusting the piston will be sitting there high enough to catch the valve. I think I would have had to tackle #8 before I called it quits though, just to let it know who's the boss.

 

I just finished my roller rocker and spring install. To figure out when the piston was at the top of the cylinder I used a 6 inch length of light rubber tubing inserted in the sparkplug hole. I cranked the engine around until I could feel the piston clamp down on the tube. I only had to remove the plugs on the driver side (the easiest side) because this allowed me to jump over and do the corresponding cylinder on the passenger side. Also, I used the Crane spring removal tool, it worked very well and I had no issues.

 

Tampa, the car is the boss.

Black Z/28, Many ways to skin a cat. It sounds like you worked-out a good system.

Just to follow-up, I finished the last ten springs today. It feels real good to have that under my belt. Cylinder 8 wasn't as bad as I thought. I took off both stock springs on cylinder 8 before installing the back spring; it gave me a little more room to work. It took most of the weekend but went smoothly. I didn't lose any locks either which was cool because I didn't have to run some of those down.

This cam and spring install has been totally awesome: I've learned so much about my car, and the help from here has been life-saving (at least "removing the heads saving"). I just need to reassemble and tune.

 

I also learned much by reading and researching on this board. The method I used to determine TDC came from a fellow board member. All the great hints and techniques that I read here made me feel a lot better about attempting this job. Now I feel very confident and I'm making plans for my cam install.

 

Cool man, good for you.

We can't forget to mention jmx's great install document. If these sites didn't exist, I bet my car would be almost completely stock.

Good luck on the cam install!

 

Amen and thanks, I'll be posting some RR dyno results in a couple of weeks.

 

nice on an f body. us y body guys got it tough with the rack in the way

 

If you buy the vincii tool for 99.00 you can do 4 springs per rotations cutting the job by drastic amounts of time

 

It took me about ten hours to do all 16 springs, about 45 minutes a spring. If I was to do another set right now I could probably cut the time in half. What slowed me down was installing the locks, and being super careful not to drop them. I didn't find compressing the springs to be very time consuming, but if I was a professional, I would definitely rather compress two springs at a time.