valve guide seal grief

[wengr]

hello, I'm trying to reassemble the head from my 83. it has 3 brass looking valve guides, and 5 steel ? the steel have grooved rings inside where the brass are smooth inside. some must have been replaced and if so I would guess that the steel are original and the brass are recent replacements. I have obtained a complete engine gasket kit from Vick's including valve seals. the seals will fit on the brass guides but seem too small for the steel guides. seems impossible to get them on the steel guides without deformation. the new seals have a metal jacket over the lower 70% or so of them, but the seals that I removed did not - just rubber and the circular spring. any advice appreciated.

[wengr]

the shop manual I'm lookng at shows a pilot, and another special tool for valve seal installation. this picture is not good enough for me to see how it would work. I can't imagine that a tool would get these seals to stretch on. any opinion as to which type of valve guide is original? or where I can get seals gauranteed to fit? can't proceed until I get seals on there. any advice appreciated.

[htchevyii]

I recently had a head rebuilt and the machine shop said he didn't have the right size cutter for the seals I supplied so he used differnt ones. I wonder if something like that happened to yours?

[wengr]

Trey thanks for the reply. what is a cutter for seats? Do you mean your shop installed different guides? were your original guides brass or steel?

[htchevyii]

Sorry, I wish I had more info, but I didn't really look that close. I assume that he had to size the top of the guide where the seal sits. He did install new bronze guides, the old ones were also bronze. When I had the head redone on my '82, they installed steel guides and one valve got stuck open after about 20 minutes of run time. I don't think it was the guides fault, but insufficient valve to guide clearance. They replaced the seel ones with bronze the second time around.

[pope]

The original guide was steel and the new type is manganese bronze guides. There are two camps on which one is better. You can get the inside knurled to allow for better lubrication. The little cut lines are suppose to hold on to oil a little better.

[wengr]

Hello Pope, on my 83 I found 5 steel guides with ringed grooves inside, like this

the seals I recieved will not fit. too small, Plastic with a metal jacket on the lower portion. and when you try to force it on it simply gouges out some plastic and starts to distort.
Like this - sorry but the camera is not so great at macro.

The other three guides were brass? No rings inside and the top had a different shape. Slightly conical, or bullet shaped. the seals seemed to fit fine on these. no pics as those three are back together. none of the seals I removed had the metal jacket. just plastic with the spring. the vendor say they only have jacketed seals and can't explain. to me the brass look considerably newer and I have been thinking they are replacements and the steel are original? any ideas? greg