Anybody refurb their own heads anymore?

I just tore down a pair of E5TE heads (stock Ford 302 truck, Mustang, etc)

Does anyone bother to lap valves anymore? This was supposedly a low to modertate mileage motor. I was just going to send the heads to be hot tanked, clean up the valves in a wire wheel, lap them with a suction cup and drill using a couple of grades of lapping compound, clean up the ports to match my gaskets, new seals and slap them back on.

 

I had good results with lapping in valves on Harley motors with a hand valve lapper, as long as good seats in the head. I wouldn't use a drill, though, is why I used the hand lapper, (2$ at harbor freight is just a suction cup on a stick...) and use a back and forth motion, lifting the lapper to get some compound in every few rotations, like you starting a fire the old injun way. Worked well for me...

 

I have a full engine machine shop at work, so yes.

 

we do all are race eingine heads and its a ford when ever we tearone down and refresh thr eingine we va*** test the chambers and usually lap them in
my dad is an old eingine builder and he has beat it in my head since i was little to lap valves always

 

Yeah I did it like that using some Clover lapping compound and a suction cup stick about 20 years ago on the valves of a '64 MG Midget. The lapping compound came in a little green can with a lid on top and bottom. One side had the co**** grit and the other had the fine grit. It's sparkly black paste. It only took about an hour. You just stop once in a while to wipe things clean to see what progress you're making. Yeah, I agree that doing it by hand is probably better. The idea is to keep some grit in between the valve and the seat while you rotate back and forth. With a drill, you'd probably just spray all the lapping compound out right away. I had good compression afterwards. It can't hurt to try (unless you don't clean all the grit out) and it'll be a quick way to tell you how good or bad the valves and valve seat are because the low spots are really obvious once you lap it. You might want to check the valve guides though even if the valves look good.

 

I bought a hand reciprocating valve lapper at Sears and used it on some SBC heads. The guides and seats were in good shape. replaced the seals and lapped the seats. Engine runs good.
On a 59 Ford 223 head I had a worn valve (only 30 PSI compression) and a worn guide. I lapped the valve without replacing the seat just to get it running to move in the yard. Got the compression up to 80-90 after lapping.
I plan to do my 302 heads too.

 

I've always hand lapped my valves to check what the seat looked like, after they were machined.