jegs tool worked great.. i didnt do any valve train stuff. my man jason (MOOORE experienced one) did all that stuff.. but he said it was a great tool

 

Thanks again guys, springs should be in today, hopefully all goes well.

 

I just finished installing Patriot Golds with the Crane tool that I borrowed from a local enthusiest. That tool works awesome. Compressing the valvesprings is the easiest part of the whole job of replacing springs.

BTW, I found the #8 exhaust spring broke! I didn't have any problems or symtoms of it besides a ticking noise that I assumed was a lifter. I think it has been like that for a couple thousand miles and some track events.

George

 

Wow, thanks again all. My car is idling in the driveway now, finished it earlier this afternoon. I wound up using an overhead valve spring compressor I got at discount/advanced auto. It was 20 bucks but was worth its weight in gold as far as im concerned. The idea of doing two springs at once is scary-we of course dropped a valve on the first set we did. Had air pressure in both cylinders, but as my buddy started compressing the exhaust valve, the keepers didnt immediately unlock, and he pushed the valve off the seat-oops! Pulled the intake, tried to get it to slide back up(you could still see the stem in the guide), no luck. I knew the piston wasnt all the way up, cause when I first applied air pressure to the cyl. there was too much pressure and it moved the piston a bit. I started rotating the piston back up, and saw the magnet I had attached to the tip of the valve move.Sweet-grabbed the magnet, pulled the valve right back up to the seat. Lesson learned, no tear down thank you. Rest went almost too smoothly, put it all back together, and voila! Actually had one of the offending weak springs break as I was compressing it, guess they were really ready to go! Learned alot today and as always got tons of help here,so thanks again...

Till the next job....

 

I am glad everything worked out OK. When I did mine I made sure the piston was at TopDeadCenter for each spring before I removed them. It takes a little longer but.....

Bill

 

what is a good way to make sure the piston is at top dead center??

 

I used a plastic straw in the plug hole to make sure the piston was real close to TDC.

Bill

 

Crane is the best one going... 2 springs at a time, very accurate, precise, professionally manufactured, reasonably priced if time is an issue, and it usually is.

 

i've done 10+ cam/spring swaps on this same tool and never had a problem. you just have to use a good ratchet or extension to keep from rounding the aluminum body of the tool. with this tool i can change the spring on an f-body in well under an hour. i use to use the crane tool, but it took a bit longer to change the springs.

now on a vette or gto i use a good old fashion pry type compressor. talk about changing the springs in no time.

 

I used a small rope. I fed the rope in the spark plug hole and turned the crank until I could feel the rope get squished enough that it wouldnt pull out. the valves wouldnt drop at all. pretty easy to do.

 

Ditto... You can get the larry or tim tool here, just look in the tools portion of this site...

https://ls1tech.com/forums/tools-fabrication-11/