[Mike]

whats invovled in replacing valvestem seals on a 1.3?
is it a big job?

Cheers

[royce]

yes

by the book you need to remove the rocker gear, to remove the rocker gear you undo the screws holding the rocker shaft in and slide them out the back of the head, so to do that you need to make room by pulling the head off or cutting a big hole through the firewall and dash

then when you have them off you need an overhead valve compresser and something to hold the valves closed and its jsut a case of pop the collets, lift the springs off and replace the seal and bung the collets back in

if you have never done anything like that the amount of room you dont have means you need to try and get the collets out with a magnet and put em back in with some bits of wire to poke em in place and hope for the best

I did it without taking the rocker gear off (screws were all stuck tight) and had to hold the compresser in with zipties and was very lucky I didnt lose any valves and still took me all day and I am a mechanic, can do the same with the right tools in an hour on a hea don a bench in bits

I would be inclined to not bother, chances are the valve guides are stuffed anyway so really needs to be recoed

[Damo]

royce wrote:

yes

by the book you need to remove the rocker gear, to remove the rocker gear you undo the screws holding the rocker shaft in and slide them out the back of the head, so to do that you need to make room by pulling the head off or cutting a big hole through the firewall and dash

then when you have them off you need an overhead valve compresser and something to hold the valves closed and its jsut a case of pop the collets, lift the springs off and replace the seal and bung the collets back in

if you have never done anything like that the amount of room you dont have means you need to try and get the collets out with a magnet and put em back in with some bits of wire to poke em in place and hope for the best

I did it without taking the rocker gear off (screws were all stuck tight) and had to hold the compresser in with zipties and was very lucky I didnt lose any valves and still took me all day and I am a mechanic, can do the same with the right tools in an hour on a hea don a bench in bits

I would be inclined to not bother, chances are the valve guides are stuffed anyway so really needs to be recoed

I feel a lot better about just taking my last head to get reco'd now!

Just FYI Mike, getting the head reco'd will cost you around $300 - $350.

[Scrawny]

Yeah, what Royce said.

I've done stem seals on a 1.3 Corolla motor with the head on. Used compressed air down the spark plug hole to hold the valves up while doing the seals. It took 2 of us about 2 hours or so. Not an easy job.

[Scrawny]

Damo wrote:

Just FYI Mike, getting the head reco'd will cost you around $300 - $350.

If it's not cracked, which most of them are.

[Mike]

it runs fine still but its started to blow smoke on decelleration so would using better oil stop the smoke a bit?

[Scrawny]

Just use a good quality 15w40.

If you start on the rebuilding route you will end up doing a complete rebuild. You would probably be better off doing a 1.6 swap if you do cos it's going to cost about the same.

[Mike]

yeah i was thinking that but i can't find a motor with low enough ks on it i was quoted $1100 for a baleno 1.60 with 180,000ks`on it

[Taff]

If it bothers you then your better off trying to find a second hand head on here or outerlimits. Usually pop up from $20-$100. Very easy to swap on to your engine too if you have a torque wrench.


Mine blows heaps of smoke if I slow down with the gears. So now i just use the brakes more

[Rockhopper]

Taff wrote:

If it bothers you then your better off trying to find a second hand head on here or outerlimits. Usually pop up from $20-$100. Very easy to swap on to your engine too if you have a torque wrench.


Mine blows heaps of smoke if I slow down with the gears. So now i just use the brakes more

Problem with that is you don't know what you are getting.. IMO you are better of getting the head crack tested and cleaned and have the valve stem seals replaced

[Mike]

the thing is my motor runs fine, starts first start and has plenty of power but what i'm trying to do is stop a bit of the smoke

[royce]

youll probably get away with jsut te guides and seals, wait and see how much it costs bruce, his is the same

[Mike]

i was looking at another motor, it got less ks than mine but the vavle stem seals are going in that too
but i think mine has a blown head gasket too but thats another story

[Scrawny]

Could be cracked head

If its bad enough then it will leak oil into the cylinders and cause the smoking.