[Vwdiesel] homemade valve compressor

[Bart Wineland]

Well, my valve seals arrived last night and I was hot to try out my 
compressor I made.  It is ugly but worked better than I hoped.

http://merlin2.alleg.edu/employee/b/bwinelan/diesel/vcomp1.JPG
http://merlin2.alleg.edu/employee/b/bwinelan/diesel/vcomp2.JPG

It turns out I could cut the handle off the compressor bar if I wanted 
to.  If I run the nuts down on the piece of angle iron the pry bar fits 
into it compresses the springs nicely and leaves me both hands to work the 
keepers back in place. I don't see how you could do it with only one hand. 
The angled tweezers sort of visible in the second photo are worth their 
weight in gold for this job.  I tried with a pencil magnet but of course it 
isn't smart enough to let go of the keeper when I want it to even though I 
screamed at it, so the tweezers work much better.  The hardest part of 
replacing the seals for me is removing the old seals. I made a set of stout 
needle nose pliers and tried to forge a nub in the tips that would grab the 
metal ring on the seal but I had a heck of a time getting them out.  They 
basically came out squashed and in pieces which makes inspecting them when 
removed pretty tough. I think I may have to buy the real tool the grabs the 
seal base all the way around for this part of the job next time. Important 
safety note I figured out as I was going is to plug off the oil ports and 
openings so if you drop a keeper it won't magically find its way somewhere 
you don't want it, that would not be good. Also I have some vinyl caps that 
are for fiber optic connectors that fit the valve stem perfectly to protect 
the new seal when sliding it on.  I was cautioned ahead of time to be sure 
to have the pistons you are working on at tdc so the valve can't fall into 
the cylinder. After doing this I don't see how that would be easy to do but 
I could be missing something.  Unless the piston is holding the valve up 
for you the spring won't compress with the valve staying put to release the 
keepers if you can picture what I am saying? Eventually I got tired of 
ratcheting the nuts up and down on the angle bar so turned my 3/8" 
butterfly impact wrench way down on power and it really saved a lot of 
time, that little tool I couldn't do without now.  I got 6 of the 8 seals 
replaced. Tonight I should be able to finish up. I checked the valves for 
any lateral play in the guides and can feel the slightest play in the 
exhaust valves but barely anything in the intakes so I am hoping the guides 
are ok.  This is all trying to chase down my massive oil burning problem. I 
doubt it is all due to the seals but am working on another theory but don't 
want to add it here until I shake it out. I hope to know in the next couple 
days.  Thanks for all the help again. Any critiques welcome.

Bart