has anyone done a valve job before? i tried searching and had no luck. I THINK my 91 7.3l idi is in need of attention at its 220,000+ miles.

symptoms: nasty little tick and slight shake at idle, uneven knock at cold idle (timing advance on or off) and small amount of white/grey puff of smoke at first start up.

sounds like injector may be leaking? maybe, but with less than 20,000 miles on new Pensacola BB codes and uhaul IP, id hope that is still in good condition with that low of miles.

the reason im contemplating doing a valve job is just so it gives me a reason to pull the heads and upgrade to head studs .......i think ill try to hook up the air compressor to the glow plug port and try to hear if any air is passing the valves/rings (i do have a large amount of blowby). the valve job doesn't seem to hard, (see video below) but if i do decide to go that route, ill pull the engine and do a top end rebuild / gaskets at least. Or maybe if the bottom end looks toast then ill just do a full rebuild......


thoughts on this? what about autozone brand parts? Melling?



Basic valve job - YouTube

 

Could it be a lifter? That seems like the syptoms mine had when a lifter went bad but I might be wrong.

 

That is not how to do a valve job. All he's doing is cleaning them up. If I went that far do a real valve job at a shop with tools to check everything including guides.I 'm not sure on these idi motors, but ticking on the 7.3 powerstroke is usually a fuel knock from air in the system.

Chet

 

Chet is right.

I REAL valve job means guides, cutting the valve and cutting the seat. Lapping the valves can get you through until you do a real R&R, but if you got the heads off anyway, a valve job isnt that expensive. Pull your heads, do a VJ with a good multi-angle seat job, install some 910's, and toss some studs in... After that, your heads are set for anything.