john, sorry about your valve. ther are somethings you need to know. if the
piston is broken, you have particles of aluminum all through the engine. these
are deposited in the oil galleries and will come through the oil system and
destroy bearings, etc. you MUST dismantle the engine completely and have it
boiled or these particles will keep wiping out bearings. that is the time to
fix the thrust washers, replace cam, if needed, etc. if you only hurt the
valve. then the head can be redone. valve springs sometimes fail. i had a race
customer have a spring break this past week-end. no apparent cause, but it
broke. please let me know if we can help. ted
John Weale wrote:
> Well, my Spit took offense at my recent obsession with emissions
> stuff, and dropped a valve to remind me that there is worse than a high CO
> reading. A valve spring broke and the valve dropped into the cylinder.
> The engine is solidly jammed. Has anyone had this happen to them, and if
> so what repairs did you require? I ask because if it is likely just a
> piston replacment, I'll dive in and fix it in my apartment parking lot.
> If it is probably going to require a rebore and a new head, I'm going to
> have to find a place to store my Spit for a few months (long term parking
> in the Bay area -- there's a fun thought) until I get the money and time
> to attack it properly (in the form of a full rebuild -- if I gotta rebore
> one cylinder...).
> Needless to say, I'm a bit unhappy about this. I have a reciept
> showing the head was replaced professionally 10k miles ago (in '92) with a
> $300 'rebuilt cylinder head', so I was *not* expecting a $3 spring to
> disinegrate and kill the poor girl. In the unforseen future when I again
> have a running spit, how often should these %$#! springs be replaced
> (in miles or years?)?
>
> Arg!
>
> John Weale
> 1980 "British Racing Orange" Spit-fireless
>
> ---======================== John Weale(tyre@u.washington.edu) ==========---
> The world does revolve around engineers... they pick the coordinate system.
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