Valve seals

[aogoblomi_03]

Have any of you guys ever replaced valve seals on the Ka24e? If they are bad would it cause your engine to smoke quite a bit? I am just guessing that is what is causing this because when I pull the plugs they have oil on them! So it kinda leads me to think this. Thanks!

[C-Kwik]

Oil on all 4 plugs? If so I would doubt you'ld get a valve seal failure in each intake port. I'd suspect you might be getting a lot of blow-by. I'd do a leakdown and determine of you might have a serious blow-by problem.

[DAEDALUS]

Typically, dark or bluish smoke happens because of 1 (or more) of 3 things:1) Bad valve seals/worn valve guides2) Bad rings on the piston3) Bad head gasket

Yeah good leakdown results will give an indication of good rings. With a borescope you can also peer into the cylinder and look for a "washed" look on the top surface of the piston along the perimeter--bad sign. Hold a piece of paper over the exhaust at idle. If the paper get's sucked toward the exhaust at all, the exhaust valves are bad. Oily plugs is a good sign of bad seals, but be certain the oil isn't due to a bad rocker cover seal. Hard to diagnose with certainty without pulling the head though.

[Open4Cycle]

Yes I have replaced the valve stem seals without removing the head before. Bad stem seals will cause smoking at start up and also taking off from a lengthy redlight. If you are experiencing oil fouled plugs then you may have piston ring seal problem though. Do a compression or leakdown test to see if you have other problems.

[DAEDALUS]

Is the oil on one side of the plug only? Dark on one side, clean on the other? That would be the seals probably.

[aogoblomi_03]

Yes on a couple of the plugs the oils is only on one side of the plug but on the other two it is all the way around?

[DAEDALUS]

Oil all the way around might be bad exhaust *and* intake seals, and/or worn rings and/or bad head gasket. Head gasket failures are typically rare and often come with other problems, like white smoke, coolant in the oil and vice versa. It does sound like at least some of your seals are bad, but it may not be worth fixing depending on the shape of the rest of the engine. First thing to do is a compression or leak-down test and go from there.

[sil80drifter]

I tried to take my seals off of my KA24E head, and they seem to stick in there pretty good, so they just rip, and leave parts of the seal inside the guide. Does anyone know how to avoid this? I tried being gentle, and I tried being tough on them, but nothing helps, they just rip. I'll have to scratch out the rests of the 4 I tried removing with a needle, but can anyone tell me of a better way fo removing the rest of them? I used pliers to rock them back and forth, but they wouldn't budge, just rip off.

sil80

[DAEDALUS]

"inside the guide" ?? I thought all seals were outside the guide. Can you take any pics? A borebrush from a gun store might help...along with some varnish remover. I have to assume you have the head off the car.I know that seals are a pain to install...guess removal ins't easy either. A lot of places will heat up the seals before installing them. A pretty safe way is to throw them in hot water for a minute right before installation to soften them up. A heat gun will work, but it's hard to control the temp that way. Too hot and they'll fail early. Maybe a heat gun is the key to taking them off?

[Open4Cycle]

A screwdirver under the side and pry them up should get them off without leaving material on the outside of the boss. They are stuck on very tight!