Re: Valve Seals

["I.Mannix" <mannix@secretignition.com>]

At 06:27 PM 8/24/98 -0400, Chris Cuzner wrote:
>I'm thinking of purchasing an '86 Golf GTi, and i was told that it needs
>new valve seals.  The apparent symtoms are 1) smell 2) a puff of blue smoke
>when you take off from a stop (small one) or when you start the car.  Is
>this correct?

Probably.  While it sits, oil leaks past the seal, guide, and into the
combustion chamber, creating the puff of smoke.  My GTI used to do it after
a few autocross runs, let it sit for an hour, go to start it again, eek,
smoke!  It is not really a big deal, but it might be a good idea to do a
leakdown test to make sure that's what the problem is, as it could be
rings, too.  Chances are, the seals are to blame, but if not......

>
>Anyways, Ron tells me that it's quite a bit of labour (like $150Can.
>worth), but the seals themselves are only like $20Can for all of them.  Is
>this correct?

Yeah.  The seals are little plastic things with springs - really pretty
fraile, in actuality.  Little things, in fact, I seem to remember paying $1
each for them, eh, maybe it was $2.  Cheap.

>
>My question is this, i'm a novice, and i was wondering if i should be able
>to change my seals myself without screwing anything else up?  And, does
>having crappy seals wreak havoc on the engine in any way (directly or
>indirectly)?

Well, it is'nt _good_, and yours sound worse than mine were.  I would have
a non-biased mechanic look at the car to verify that the seals are dead; to
your question, though - it is not really a difficult job, if you have the
tools.  Primary tool that you don't have;) is a fitting to go into the
sparkplug hole that an airhose fits to - you have to take the valve springs
off, so there'd be nothing holding the valve into the head, IE, it could
fall into the cylinder.  The airhose pressurizes the cylinder, holding the
valve up where it should be.  Once there, the seals slide off the valve
stem, slide new ones on, spring, retainer, lifter, etc, cam, belt, cover,
drive.  That's the basic jist of it on a solid head, might be a smidge
different on a hydraulic head(don't know for sure either way), but the
concept is fairly standard.  You would also need a valve spring compressor,
all that crap.  $200 to replace all the seals sounds like a good deal to
me, get a new timing belt on it in the interim, etc.  Might be a good time
to put a new cam in, too, if you feel like it!  

I.Mannix



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