How to take the valves out??? please help.?

Question

I want to take the valves out and clean the valves and the valve seats properly. but dont know how to take them out, the engine is a very old side valve lawn mower engine(suffolk punch). Its a plain simple single cylinder side valve engine, have some similarities with briggs and stratton. the problem is dont know how to take valves out. any ideas and suggestions appreciated, thanx

Answer 1

Taking valves out for a notice should be avoided unless you are willing to experiment and possibly mess up your engine.

Answer 2

If you plan on having the valves ground, then I would just look in the phonebook for a small engine shop or automotive machine shop that also does small engine work. Take the engine to them and they will remove the valves, check them and the guides and replace or repair them and grind the seats and valves and reassemble it for you. Depending on where you are and how much is wrong with it, this could cost anywhere from $20 to over a $100. They can give you a quote before they start major work, though. Good luck.

Answer 3

If you don't know how to take the valves out chances are you don't know what to look for as far as servicing the motor. Do you have valve grinding tools? A torque wrench and the specs for head gasket tightening? Pick up a used mower, it's cheaper than fooling around.

Answer 4

Just to clear up on the other contributors, on these engines it is occasionally necessary to take the valves out and re-seat them after cleaning.

Hope this helps!

Answer 5

You have to compress the valve spring to remove the keepers. One does not normally clean valves as they are lapped or ground in place to true up the valve seat to gain compression.