Look at my Valves and tell me what you think!

[thecrazygreek]

Here are pics of my valves. I'm not too familiar with what to look for. So, if you have experience with this stuff please chime in and tell me what you think of them. Good to go? Replace?
My goal is "just fine I'd run em"

Thanks, valve people!

 

[thecrazygreek]

Last one...

 

[steffan]

No expert, but I think the external surface, what we are looking at is pretty insignificant. The critical part is the back side, where it seals with the seat and the stem

 

[charliemeyer007]

The valves look ok - there could be some spots of concern - hard to tell by pic's. Your plugs look fowled, could be oil burning due to worn rings, clogged air filter, to light a oil, bad carb/mixture, weak spark - coil, points, condenser or plug wires.

Want a good test of the valve seats - without the valve springs fill the combustion chamber with gasoline and see if leaks. Crappy test is water with the springs in. It would have been helpful to have done a dry then wet compression test before pulling the head. A leak down tester would have provided even more information.

 

[fjc-man]

Yes, this stuff.

 

[Grayscale]

My valves would get erosion on the 45-degree-surface. And some valves had stem-erosion, just at the port-exposed side, short of the valve guide itself. Either way, the other side of the valve deserves cleaning and looking at.

Cylinder #2 looks kinda damaged from your photos.

 

[pb4ugo]

There's no way to tell from the pics. At this point you can pour acetone in the chambers and see if they leak.

 

[1969FJ]

I had A head redone, whole head. Here is a small pic for reference.

 

[1911]

Agree with others, that we need to see the seats to be able to tell much.

 

[rlong]

Your pics show “not obviously burned up”; a good thing. More disassebly required for further review. If you go that route you will need a valve spring tool or home made contraption, and would want to replace valve stem seals while it’s apart.

 

[Pitter Patter]

Agreed with most of the responses. There’s more to it. Vacuum testing is the best method for finding out if they leak. Any machine shop can do that for you. There’s also the seats, how the valves move within the guides, how much carbon buildup is on the stem side, bend/wear, blah blah… the head is off so you may as well do the full job. Rebuilding a head isn’t difficult.

 

[Pitter Patter]

And since we all love some malice in the combustion palace pics. Friends Subaru lost compression so we tore it down. Here’s what a bad valve looks like.

 

[pb4ugo]

As I mentioned b4, you postion the head so the deck mating surface is up and pour acetone in each combustion chamber and see if it leaks thru the seats. Folks have used Acetone to find cracks in blocks and manifolds. You can also lap the valves or use Prussian blue to see how the valve seals against the seat.

 

[mtn biker]

No expert, but I think the external surface, what we are looking at is pretty insignificant. The critical part is the back side, where it seals with the seat and the stem

I was going to say that exact same thing words and all. every last word verbatim

 

[Michael Hanson]

Hi, How long have they been in there,miles etc ? 100,000 plus then do a valve job.my bet there leaking a little or more.