Valve spring keeper tool

[funracer]

The biggest hassle during my recent valve job was reinstalling the springs.
I had a heck of a time getting the keepers in until I put this tool together:

I bought one of these spring compressors at Autozone ($13), but they are available everywhere:



You can use it as is to compress the valve springs on one or two of the metro valves but it wont work on the others. You can also buy a large "C" type spring compressor but most of the ones I saw did not have a tip that would fit onto the metros recessed valves.

I had a carpenters clamp in my garage used it and the head off of the Autozone compressor as follows.

I removed the head by prying off the lock washer:


The "wings" on the tool head came in contact with sides of the engine head when I tried to use it so i cut off two of the wings with a Dremel:



Then I used the carpenters clamp with a rag on the combustion side to hold the valve in place. It was easy to put the keepers in with the spring held down:


I'm sure there are many other ways to do it but this worked pretty well for me.

Regards

[Johnny Mullet]

I had one of those big, bulky C compressors and made an adapter from a piece of 1" conduit............
http://geometroforum.com/topic/638797/



It worked for me, but the next few times, I used my thumbs and my wife. I would push down the spring with my thumbs and the wife would drop them in for me.