Since I have to pull everything on top of the engine in order to get to the rear crossover pipe which I assume is the source of my coolant leak, I may as well clean the intake valves. I've seen mention of carb cleaner, wire brushes and maybe some heat gun to encourage the gunk to come off.
When wire brushing etc, do you need to manually turn the engine over to make sure each valve is closed in turn before cleaning, or do you just allow the crap to fall into the combustion chamber? If closing each valve, how do you scoop all the gunk out from around the valves?

 

Sorry to hear about the crossover pipe. I also cleaned my intake valves when my crossover pipe failed. I used a few wire tube brushes and some carb cleaner. I was using a blow gun connected to my air compressor to blow out all the gunk that was coming off the valves. I’ll post a couple of photos of the wire brushes and blow gun.

 

Swilmer: Did you turn the motor over in order to close both valves for the cylinder you were working on?

 

YES!! make sure each valve closes.. your lower back is going to love you after the hours needed in hovering over this project. I used a case of different solvents. intake valve cleaners and such. wire brushes / scrapers / you name it. just take your time. I probably made a post or two and there are others. I used long double hinge needle nose pliers and cotton ***** to absorb the soupy tar colored gunk after melting it. I sprayed and filled the valve and back up the stem several times and then just absorbed it up. They make foam absorbers on cotton swab looking sticks and other such things. good luck!

 

Thanks. It's 102 here at the moment so today is an inside with the A/C on day!

Hmm, I assume I'm going to need some new gaskets too? Anyone have a list?

 

Well, job done. The valves weren't terrible and the gunk comes off fairly easily. I used a dental pick to get behind the valve, a brass bristle brush and a blunted screwdriver. Thanks for the advice swilmer. You're right, my back is killing me, hovering over the top of the motor constantly worried about breaking something.
I didn't try to get the valves spotless, just "good enough".

 

Nice work! "Good enough" looks perfectly good enough to me and a vast improvement over how mine looked before I cleaned them. Did you get any before pics? What's the mileage on your engine? When I pulled my heads apart the amount of crud on the inlet valves was impressive.

 

I thought I had a picture, but I can't find one. They really were not bad, I suspect there will be no difference in performance from doing this job, but since the valves are there it may as well be done.
The car has done 49k milies.

By the way, what's the size of the nut on the crank pulley? I used a 15/16" whitworth which fit perfectly, I suspect it's 25mm, but I have no metric sockets between 22 and 27mm.

By the way squared: I'm glad the carb cleaner didn't drain straight past the closed valves, I've had cars before where that would have happened!


Edit: Ah 24mm, 15/16 whit=23.81mm

 

Yeah, 24mm. I grabbed this one off Amazon because it's deep enough to fit through the crank pulley holding tool and have a breaker bar directly on the end of it which felt more solid than a shorter socket and an extension.