Technical valve spring compression?

Squirrel has given you good advice above. ^^^^^

My question is: Was the engine burning oil and smoking out the tail pipe or just leaking out of the old gaskets holding it together?

Big difference in what repairs you need. On the additive use..........the affected part is the valve seat rather than the valve itself........tho all valves do wear on the sealing edge.............and the valve stem as it goes up and down in the guide. The guide itself wears also.

You can probably get by with lapping the valves, but I'd go with grinding the valves and the seats and reusing the valves you have...........unless the machine shop tells you they need replacing. There are some valve guide seals available nowadays that can help if the guides are slightly worn but usable......and since this is an "occasional driver". In any case, I'd figure on replacing the valve springs with new ones. If a spring breaks and drops a valve it will cost far more to repair the engine next time.

When its reassembled, I'd use a good oil, but not synthetic. The reason I say that is the synthetic has a way of finding its way out of a gasket seal better than a non-synthetic. Older design gaskets often leak anyway.

 

Like said above by others, collect a few tools and lap the valves yourself. But before you start, come up with a plan to allow valves to go back in the same hole they came out of.

 

Welcome to the HAMB
Good question and great advice, IMHO a full blown rebuild is best however machine shop work is expensive. If your heads are in fair shape a simple valve lap and new seals will get you up and running. Sounds like your engine was running ok before you removed heads to fix oil leaks so a simple shade tree valve job will get you down the road for a while. I’ve done a few engine freshen jobs with good results. The only thing that I can add is if you go the simple route is:
1. If you find anything way out of spec - repair to spec. Otherwise you will likely have a a complete failure in a short time
2. At some point a complete rebuild will be in order, if you only drive a couple thousand miles a year your simple rebuild may last decades, at 20000 a year who knows.
3. I have run a few engines without harden seats with no problems, again if you can afford to have harden seats installed that is best.
Dan

 

@Joshua O'Rourke , what’s your location? Maybe there’s a HAMB member with a valve refacer and seat grinder that needs a pizza or burger lunch nearby.

 

no burning oil or smoking, just visible leaks after parking and lots of greases all over, which most of it ive cleaned but there's still some degreasing left. The advice is very helpful thank you!

 

thanks for the advice I'm hoping to get a quote for the heads tomorrow. "Sounds like your engine was running ok before you removed heads to fix oil leaks" you'd be correct the only problem it every had was starting hot but ive read that may have been do to vapor lock since the car would stat first try on cold. and your right im only planning on driving it a couple thousand miles a year.

 

@Sharpone , I too have run a 235(rebuilt in the early 60’s) no idea about seats.
In the 90’s when I got it running and was a Daily for me for a few years. I bet I put 12-20k miles on it-no clue. Ran it at 3k, that was my speedometer.
Once fired up and running right, I did a hot running valve adjustment-anyone need curly feeler gauges?- and never touched the valves again.
Who knows, I recently did an early 50’s 218 out of a car, cut the seats by hand, could definitely tell the exhaust seats were harder than the intake seats.

 

Poor starting hot is typically from too much fuel or weak ignition (can't burn all the fuel). Its almost never from vapor lock. (I'm going to duck and cover now). Everyone likes that catch-all excuse that gets blamed for poorly adjusted timing. You'll soon find out that you'll want to gap your points at .016-.017" and set the timing significantly higher - like 14-18 BTDC at idle while the vacuum hose is disconnected from the distributor. It'll start easier, run cooler, and be more fun to drive!

 

Poor starting hot down here in AZ is usually caused by the fuel boiling in the carb....they don't make it the same as they used to...

 

interesting, i feel I'm getting a touch of topic here but what causes weak ignition guessing it may be a few things

I live in Illinois this happened on cool days

 

ignition problems might include dirty or misadjusted points, failing condenser, wrong timing, dirty secondary side (cap, plug wires), dirty or wrong gap plugs, failing coil, miswired feed, stuff like that.

 

I have run engines with non-hardened valve seats for many miles, never a problem. I like the general clean up and lap the valves in. You can check valves to see if they are bent using a drill press or even a cordless drill. At low speed of course, a bent one will be obvious.

If I use a head again, I use a big flat file and go over the head surface at an approx 45 degree angle to see of there are low spots, go 45 one way and then the other way. Higher spots will show up as shiny. You can also use a good straight-edge and a feeler gauge. Search out some methods, it is not rocket surgery.

 

Well Bob, I believe you typed to fast and maybe ? Meant to write “if I have a used head again…” etc.

If not, no worries. I know of a lady that makes house calls, if she can’t be in your area, she’ll know someone who is

Just effing with you.

 

Nothing like getting a little a-head in this world...