[Vwdiesel] homemade valve compressor

[gary]

Great job on the homemade tool!

Looks almost like the store bought. They make a special set of pliers
for removing the old seals. Did your new seals come with a end cap for
the valve? Looks like one half of a medicine capsule.

Have you been inspecting each seal as you remove them? Are you noticing
any gross problems such as cracking?

-Gary


On Wed, 2004-11-24 at 10:04, Bart Wineland wrote:
> 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 
> 
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