What could be causing this type of valve keeper wear pattern? Valve keeper pics. These are just under a year old and were installed by the machine shop the reworked my Vortec heads. This doesn’t seem normal to me and they actually look bent.
Valve Keeper Wear?
- Thread starter bytor
- Start date
mrvette
Phantom of the Opera
Looks like rong size....difference between old American vs metric??
:crutches::flash:
:crutches::flash:
Twin_Turbo
Der Maulwurf
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2008
- Messages
- 7,575
Wrong keeper/retainer combo. Looks like GMPP keeper for use w/ the 12495492 retainer. That's the LT4 hotcam retainer that's also used on some vortec heads. Do you have bare metal very low profile retainers w/ a wide chamfer on the sides?
pcf_mark
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2008
- Messages
- 218
TT is on to it. That keeper and retainer are not compatible. Amazing you did not drop a valve(s). Take a retainer and pair of keepers and assemble them in your hand w/o the valve. It should fit perfectly. Get a valve and assemble it in your hand too and pull on the valve with them dry fitted. You may find the keepers are binding because the angle of the keeper is incorrect.
Any chance someone mixed some aftermarket keepers (8 degree stock, 10 degree "super locks" etc) with the stock retainers?
Any chance someone mixed some aftermarket keepers (8 degree stock, 10 degree "super locks" etc) with the stock retainers?
mrvette
Phantom of the Opera
Well, I am starting to figure out what’s going on now. I had a discussion with the folks at the machine shop told them the valve locks didn’t look correct. Their response was “Yep there good, we install offset locks with used springs to improve used spring tension”. Well I immediately understood what was happing. First, the locks they used are crap. Second, the offset locks put the retainer bottom closer to the top of the valve seal. Being Vortec heads, this has my measured retainer to seal clearance at .040, not cool. I removed the offset locks and installed stock locks and measured again. That put me at a safer.120. As far as the springs go. After I had the heads originally serviced, the first thing I did was replace the used stock springs with Z28 springs from SDPC. When I did this, I reused the offset locks the shop installed without knowing they were offset or checking the clearance.
I don’t see any other signs of damage, no bent push rods and the rockers look fine. But, I did notice the Z28 springs are not square top to bottom. Looks like they are about between 1/16 and 1/8 off. I didn’t check this when I installed them a year ago so I don’t know if they came that way or not. What else would cause springs to become not square?
I don’t see any other signs of damage, no bent push rods and the rockers look fine. But, I did notice the Z28 springs are not square top to bottom. Looks like they are about between 1/16 and 1/8 off. I didn’t check this when I installed them a year ago so I don’t know if they came that way or not. What else would cause springs to become not square?
