Hey guys, I am thinking of doing valve srpings on my truck while I have the rokers off to do pushrods. My quetion is has anyone done these while the motor is in the truck and if so how hard is it and are there any tips that you have? Is it best to fill the cylinders with air or try to get each piston to top dead center?

Any tip, links, or seggestions would be appriciated.

 

hopefully blake one of the masters chime in here. I'd think that an old glow plug could be made into a compressed air adaptor to keep valves closed once you get the rockers rrolled around outa the way.

 

Bump! Nobody has anything to say? I am getting comp 910 springs I think.

 

Blake, they aren't hard to do in the truck. you know that little vacuum canister on the pass side on the heater core box? go ahead and take that off just like when you do injectors b/c the pushrod won't come out with it in. other than that pulling the rockers are all easy as pie and replacing pushrods, easy. you can use one of the 3 methods to change the springs. pull piston up to top dead center, air, or you can use a clothes hanger to hold them up. i'd pull the piston to top dead center personally just for safety.. you will obviously need to find a valve spring compressor that will fit the springs which shouldn't be too hard since these are like gasser springs basically only heavier.

some spring info:

new stock springs are 110lbs seat pressure, 250lbs open @ .410, .070" to coil bind, ~350lb/in spring rate.

Comp 910's are 120lbs seat pressure, 285lbs open @ .410", .070" to coil bind, ~400lb/in spring rate

Hypermax @ 1.615" installed, 150lbs seat pressure,330# open @ .410", .130" to coil bind, ~440lb/in spring rate

so you can see that comp 910's aren't really much better than stock really... i'd go with hypermax or maybe even check out Outlaw diesel or WOP and see what their spring pressures are. you probably want around the 150lb seat pressure and 330lb open pressure of the hypermax springs so if the others are close to that then i'd go as close to those numbers as possible, but if you can't afford to do that then comp 910's will work OK, just remember no high revs with them and big boost levels will still blow them open(around 50-60lbs of boost with 60-70lbs of exhaust back pressure will do it i think?)

 

strokin'_tatsch,

Do you have a diagram or any directions or method to know when each piston is at top dead center?

The rockers and pushrrods are currently out of the truck and I will be ordering parts Monday. I had originally planned on ordering DI chromoly pushrods and comp 910 valve springs, but if you do not think that they will handle my setup than I may reconsider the valve springs. Although I am only pushing 35 - 40 lbs of boost.

Thanks for the help!

 

get the 910's for now as they can be had cheap(summit has them at around $100) and the DI pushrods are very nice too. i got them in mine right now. i have some pics that i can post of the size difference vs the stock pushrods as well if you want. Something else about the other springs like the hypermax hi revs and stuff is that the head has to be machined a little to accept the springs.

to know when it's at top dead center i would pull the glowplug and put something like a small plastic tube or something down in the cylinder(something that won't break or get stuck in there). then have someone turn the crank and when the piston gets to the top you will feel it hit top so stop there. if your helper goes past a little bit then turn it the other way to bring the piston back up til it's at the very very top. then pull whatever your using back out of the cylinder and work on the springs. once you get the new springs on there and compressed and put the keepers back on and get the valve spring compressor back off the spring then tap it a couple times with like a rubber mallet or brass hammer or something of the like that won't damage anything on the valve, you just want it to move up and down a little so you know the keepers seated correctly and won't fly off when you start the truck again. do this on every one of them.

 

Travis,
I got to thinking about it and I thought that would work. I was thinking of using a coat hanger or a piece of wire. Do you think that would work? Also do I need to get a shim pack for the comp springs to make shure that they are installed at the same hieght or do you think they will be fine?

 

You could, but to my understanding most ppl are just using the shims for increased weight. the problem with using the shims to get the higher pressure is that they don't have much til they bind up so if you try to shim them to get 150lbs seat pressure then they will probably bind like crazy. mine are installed without shims, but the machine shop did those when i took them up to get decked and the performance valve job. I don't think most ppl are using the shims on them though.

 

I ordered my comp 910's from Jegs today and they will be here tomorrow. They were only $104.06 shipped to my door, so I did not think that was too bad. I also went to NAPA and bought a top mount valve spring compressor for like $39.00. Will be ordering my pushrods as soon as I get ahold of David at DI, I have left him a message, but he is out right now. Starting to get excited!

 

One more update. I bought the pushrods from Swamp's because DI will not have any in stock until the end of next week. I also bought new boots and plentum inserts from riff raff.

 

dang, i think you woulda fallen in love with David's pushrods too. LOL. they actually increase the size of them along with making them from chromoly. they have to neck them down quite a bit to get them back down to the size of the stocker at the ends so they will fit the rockers and lifters. haha. mine were probably like 2x the diameter of the stock ones?? the ones from swamps might be ok too tho. Heck get ya some roller rockers while your at it, your on a roll!!!!

 

Yeah Travis I will order those roller rocker monday if I win the lottery! LOL!!! Those things are high dollar. I wonder what kind of HP they free up?

 

probably minimal power gain from them. our stock rockers are like a half *** roller rocker. they have a little ball that the rock on. they are some weird rockers, but the seem to work decent unless we want to see some big RPMs.

 

Just alittle fyi and a question. Doing valve springs in the truck is a pain in the a$$. I got them doneand the pushrods in but as I inspected the rocker arms for reinstallation I noticed that two of them were broke. So my question is, is were sould I get them? Ford? Also sould I replace all of them? My concern is that is two were broke it had to stress all of them and I don't want one to break once I get it back togther.

 

i would check with ford or IH and see what they can do. OR you could always use that as an excuse for some rollers!!!!

good job on getting the rest of it done though. what kind of valve spring compressor did you use? i need to go buy one so i can pull my comp 910's for Cody.