Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

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3 Litre Power
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Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

Post by 3 Litre Power »

I was getting tired last year of constantly having to add oil to my 3.0 Essex, i assumed it was just worn piston rings and nothing but a rebuild would cure it.
Then i realised that my engine only smoked on start up, and reading on the interntet i found out this could be the valve stem seals leaking after becoming hard and not sealing the valve stem properly.
I bought a new set of 12 from Motomobil.com in Germany, a friend of mine who is a mechanic let me use his valve spring compressor tool.
All i did was bring the cylinder i was changing the seals on to TDC, and then compress the spring, take out the retainers, and then take off the spring which revealed the seal, change the seal, lube it with some engine oil and put it back on, compress the spring and put the keepers/retainers back on ( can be hard )
I did this job in approximately 6-7h of work with a friend helping me out.
The old seals were extremely hard, pretty much plastic, and not rubber anymore, no wonder they did a lousy job sealing the valve stems.
I did it August last year, now the engine practically burns no oil :shock:
At the same time i changed the oil with fresh Valvoline VR1 20W-50 and a Motorcraft EFL-90 oil filter.
Also the spark plugs are noticeably cleaner since i changed the seals.
So of your Capri burns lots of oil consider this!!
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Re: Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

Post by Noel »

Very interesting to hear that this makes a difference even on a pushrod engine like the Essex V6.
Always though OHC engines were more prone to stem-seal oil leak smoke due to the amount of oil hanging around up the top to lubricate the cam.
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Re: Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

Post by Mc Tool »

3 Litre Power wrote:I did this job in approximately 6-7h of work with a friend helping me out.
6-7 hours ??!! what was he doing .... making cocktails :lol:
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Re: Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

Post by Arya2.0S »

Yep, best thing I've done to my Pinto. Had two separate engines smoke like a chimney, changed the stem seals on my current one (used the superior top hat cvh ones) and hasn't smoked since, not even a faint puff!
My old ones were knackered too, they were literally crumbling away as we took them out, no wonder it smoked so much! Even did it on tickover once it had warmed up but no more so yeah, definitely an essential thing to do if your old Ford likes to act like it's on 40 a day!
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Re: Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

Post by 3 Litre Power »

Mc Tool wrote:
3 Litre Power wrote:I did this job in approximately 6-7h of work with a friend helping me out.
6-7 hours ??!! what was he doing .... making cocktails :lol:
We started on a Saturday evening did 3 odd hours and then on Sunday morning 4 ish hours until we got the engine running again, it was also the first time i've done anything like this so... and also the valve that is all the way at the back was a pain to do, because mine is LHD you have the master cylinder in the way.
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Re: Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

Post by 3 Litre Power »

Noel wrote:Very interesting to hear that this makes a difference even on a pushrod engine like the Essex V6.
Always though OHC engines were more prone to stem-seal oil leak smoke due to the amount of oil hanging around up the top to lubricate the cam.
Really it can happen to any old engine, the rubber just dries out and becomes hard like plastic, so it no longer seals the valve stem anywhere near as well as when the engine was new.
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Re: Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

Post by Vermilion »

Smoke engine is very common with 3.0 Essex. Essex has lots of oil in upper section of engine and if there even little bit
fault in valve stem you can almost instantly recognice if from exhaust. My car used to have 3.0 Essex and high pressure oil pump
and that totally flooded upper part of engine. I was forced to make plugs for oil holes to make them 30% smaller to reduce
massive flood in valve covers.

Also if you don't use lead additive with fuel valves tend to wear out much faster and that causes also smoky exhaust.
Essex heads gets overheated much easier because water canal/ways are not close to exhaust valves.(Compared to cologne) With high rpm/boost
that tends to wear valves also faster.

Alloy heads and low temperature thermostat helps in this case. IF you make oil holes smaller i suggest to use fully synthetic oil something like 5W-40 or 5W-50. Fully synthetic oil won't burn so easily and block oil canals and has washing/cleaning elements. "Less black sludge problems"

http://diminishedvalueofgeorgia.com/wp- ... 24x768.jpg
Mineral oil, not so often oil changed....
vs
Fully synthetic, oil change every second year or 5.000 to 6.000 km.
https://1drv.ms/i/s!Ak0ev910-aPVhEjBzAg4tR1A6nYi


If E85 used as fuel need oil change every 3.000 to 4.000km.
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Re: Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

Post by Paul G »

A lot of cars suffer with valve stem oil seal problems. Ford Pinto, Essex and CVH were bad but one of the worst was the 8V MK2/MK3 Golf - they really used to smoke badly when they were gone. I've the tools for doing them in situ too, bit more of a mission than the Fords. I've done loads of them.
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Re: Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

Post by 3 Litre Power »

Vermilion wrote:Smoke engine is very common with 3.0 Essex. Essex has lots of oil in upper section of engine and if there even little bit
fault in valve stem you can almost instantly recognice if from exhaust. My car used to have 3.0 Essex and high pressure oil pump
and that totally flooded upper part of engine. I was forced to make plugs for oil holes to make them 30% smaller to reduce
massive flood in valve covers.

Also if you don't use lead additive with fuel valves tend to wear out much faster and that causes also smoky exhaust.
Essex heads gets overheated much easier because water canal/ways are not close to exhaust valves.(Compared to cologne) With high rpm/boost
that tends to wear valves also faster.

Alloy heads and low temperature thermostat helps in this case. IF you make oil holes smaller i suggest to use fully synthetic oil something like 5W-40 or 5W-50. Fully synthetic oil won't burn so easily and block oil canals and has washing/cleaning elements. "Less black sludge problems"

http://diminishedvalueofgeorgia.com/wp- ... 24x768.jpg
Mineral oil, not so often oil changed....
vs
Fully synthetic, oil change every second year or 5.000 to 6.000 km.
https://1drv.ms/i/s!Ak0ev910-aPVhEjBzAg4tR1A6nYi


If E85 used as fuel need oil change every 3.000 to 4.000km.
I only use BP Ultimate 98 ( no ethanol ) my Essex does not overheat at all, if anything it almost runs too cold, int he winter i have to change the radiator for a smaller one because the original one that has a new core in it is too good!
I know a lot about engine oils, my engine has no sludge and is clean even though it's lived on Mineral oils for most of it's life, also it gets very got here in the summer ( Up to +42c ) so the thick 20W-50 helps it maintain good oil pressure ( engine has probably 150tkm ), and my engine is standard so the cylinder heads don't overflow with oil.
If i rebuild the engine at some point, i will probably use Amsoil or Mobil 1 Racing 4T oil in it, i know good synthetics can give very clean engines.
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Re: Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

Post by Vermilion »

I am using Mobil 5W-50 Fully Synthetic PeakLife/Rally Formula, because it has about 1200ppm zzdp "zinc" also.
Makes old type engine withstand more bearing and surface loads.

https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com ... SY355_.jpg

And I have 2 bar boost, and that rises exhaust temperature about 100-200C degrees higher than NA engines.
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Re: Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

Post by 3 Litre Power »

Ofcourse with a Turbo engine Mobil 1 is a good choice, i didn't know the 5W-50 Peak life had 1200ppm of zddp, seems like a good oil for your engine.
However this standard 3.0 Essex runs just fine on 20W-50 so i think i'll just stay with that, and Valvoline VR1 has 1300ppm and i can get it cheaper than Mobil 1, VR1 has great specs for a Mineral 20W-50, API SM and ACEA A3/B4 , TBN is over 12, base oil is i think Group II, and it also has a good dose of friction modifiers.
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Re: Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

Post by Vermilion »

3 Litre Power wrote:Ofcourse with a Turbo engine Mobil 1 is a good choice, i didn't know the 5W-50 Peak life had 1200ppm of zddp, seems like a good oil for your engine.
However this standard 3.0 Essex runs just fine on 20W-50 so i think i'll just stay with that, and Valvoline VR1 has 1300ppm and i can get it cheaper than Mobil 1, VR1 has great specs for a Mineral 20W-50, API SM and ACEA A3/B4 , TBN is over 12, base oil is i think Group II, and it also has a good dose of friction modifiers.

If you can do semi synthetic and want cheaper than peak life you should go for mobil super 2000 10W-40
Quote: In finnish from my email directy from mobil.

"Mobil 1 Peak Life 5W-50 osalta voidaan määräksi sanoa n. 1200ppm. Muissa synteettisissä tuotteissa määrät ovat pienempiä. Super 2000 10W-40 pitoisuus n. 1900 ppm" By TechDeskEurope /SM <[email protected]>

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com ... L1500_.jpg
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Re: Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

Post by 3 Litre Power »

I was using Mobil 1 Super 2000 10W-40 before but was not happy with the hot oil pressure in the summer at idle , keep in mind we have normally 35-40c
in July-August where i live, so 10W-40 is a bit thin for my Essex with more than 100tkm in such high temperatures, also i can get VR1 for pretty cheap, only 30.90 for 5L.
I didn't know Super 2000 had 1900ppm Zinc, but VR1 has enough at 1300.
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Re: Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

Post by andy007007 »

Mine has smoked for years, i might change the valve rubber things, might help?
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Re: Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

Post by Mc Tool »

While worn guide seals will cause a good blast of smoke on start up ,the engine will continue to burn oil whilst running , just that its not so obvious ,specially if using modern oils which dont smoke so bad when burnt .
My pinto used to get thru a bit of oil which bugged me as it didnt smoke after start up but Di was following me in another car and when we stopped she remarked " fuck ( quite the lady 😆) that thing stinks ". Never bothered fixing it as the guides were knackered too .
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Re: Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

Post by ollyw »

Does anyone know of a valve hold down tool for the 2.8 without having to remove the heads?
Looks like it’s possible on the 3 litre based on the original posters description?
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Re: Changing valve stem seals is very worth it

Post by stevemarl »

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/393501870389 ... %3A2334524
Maybe this type of thing could work - but how do you stop the valve dropping into bore? Then again, isn`t it possiblre to feed a foot or 2 of string through plug hole, then turn till TDC thus the string squashes up against valve, holding it shut? you could then use that tool tp compress the valve spring & remove collets. Only ever done it with head off myself.
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