I have a 2002 f250 5.4 2V
I just received the heads and block back from the machine shop and started to reassemble the heads
Before I disassembled the motor it was at 225000
I purchased new Intake and Exhaust Valves, Valve stems
i was curious should I get new Valve spring, keepers and tops since they have over 200000 miles on it or no?
And to assemble wouldn’t I put the valve stem, spring, top, keeper on or does a shim or anything go under the valve stem?

 

Wow!! That is almost my truck. I too have a 2002 F-250 5.4L 2V CCLB 4WD @227,000 miles and it's going into the shop for a head gasket repair. I don't have the time and it's my only ride. If I had a another ride, I might attempt it myself. But alas, it's got a coolant leak and small oil leak, well we'll see how small it is when he rips it apart. Everything is good so I am hoping for a clean bill of health after its done. Gonna cost about 4K, give or take. He'll take the timing chain and replace, tensioners and send out the heads to be machined. Got any pix of your work?

 

You should ABSOLUTELY install new valve springs, valve seals and retainers. There’s no way I would use parts with that mileage during a rebuild. If the heads were machined for flatness, best to let the machine shop assemble the head unless you have the proper tools to measure the valve installation height.

— Dave

 

Mine was knocking, turns out I had two bad head gaskets, a bad oil pump. I got the heads shaved and dipped, block rebored and dipped, I got the valves shaved down and the crank looked at and it cost me just about $700, I have everything to rebuild except new rods and I am about 3K in. I also ordered a high volume oil pump after doing some research about them. I would recommend doing that. I don’t have a picture of the block currently since I have it all taped up for paint, but I have picture of the heads before and after machine shop

 

The machine shop did shave the heads but would that be considered machines for flatness? I removed them myself with a tool but would I absolutely have to pay them to put it back in or what?

 

The problem with shaving the heads on any OHV engine is it pushes the valves closer to the piston, which closes up piston to valve clearance. On most stock rebuilds, it's not really an issue assuming they just skimmed it and didn't take more than say .010" to get it clean. Some engine run such tight PTV clearance that even a slight skim could lead to PTV contact. Once you start changing to higher compression pistons or higher valve lift cams, you need to be extra careful with the PTV clearance. On OHC engines the bigger issue is it will push the cams closer to the crank center line, causing slight changes to the cam timing because of the extra length now in the timing chains. Combine tight PTV clearance with the cam timing being slightly off and there's a greater chance of PTV contact. The easiest fix for both of these is to get an oversized thickness head gasket as close to how much material they took off which will put the head back in it's stock location.

At 225K miles the heads would be getting all new parts, except the cams if they were still in good shape. New valves, guides, seals, seats and the valves lapped in. Springs, retainers, keepers and GT followers. If the cams were getting replaced, I'd be tempted to spend the money on a slight upgrade, especially if there was an option that didn't need to be tuned.