Upgrading replacement heads with Heavy Duty Valve Springs

11th Sep 2011.

It had been some time since my problems with my valve springs as I had found it quite difficult to locate some good second hand 1600 heads. Amazingly I found these eventually on hht://www.volkszone.co.uk web site and they where only a few miles away from me the whole time. I was lucky that the heads that I found had come from an engine that had only done 1500 miles or less so the heads had effectively already been run in.

I had managed to find some Heavy duty springs for same on eBay and new that they would have to be fitted to the new heads. This was as I had found to my cost that the standard springs would not take the compression from the ham and high lift rockers. I had also decided that rather than find chromoly push rods at this time I would use a set of bolt together 1:2 rockers I had purchased already.

The first thing I did with the heads was to remove the springs and valves and clean the ports on the heads. This in simple terms means smoothing the inlets to the ports with sand paper or an electric tool.

Fitting the Heavy duty Springs turned out to be a challenge my converted spring removal tool bent under the strain. I knew I would have to buy the bigger valve tool that I had tried to buy the last time from Cool Air before Bug Jam but decided this time to buy it from VW Heritage it arrived a day later.

The tool came in two package a package containing a split pin and the other containing the tool in separate bits. Amazingly there was no instructions for assembly but fortunately I had seen a diagram that I loaded up onto my site before showing it put together. The tool is a fantastic piece of kit but you need to learn how to use it. Firstly there are small pieces of tubing welded to the base these have to be aligned on the valve head . You cannot simply place the head on the tool and do all the valves without moving the head. Secondly when you press down on the arm after locating the tool head on the valve as in the picture the spring gives a little before it hits this block on the base. You need to press the arm quite hard after this to break the seal between the collet's and the retainers, they will usually let go with a thud and the spring will compress allowing the collet's to be picked out of the retainers with a bradel. Once the collet's are removed the arm can be released to allow the spring to be removed. The head then needs to be adjusted before this procedure can be repeated. The new collet's and retains are also heavy duty and it is easy to tell the difference. I found it a fiddle to get the Heavy Duty Valve springs on the tool and head. The main reason for this was the springs seem to be longer as well as thicker. I found that balancing the spring and retainer on the head and pulling down the tool head so it touched i could then push the spring and retainer into the tool head. I also found it difficult to get the collet's in place i found that insert in one then releasing the arm centralized the retainer and made it easier to fit the second collet in. The bradel was extremely useful to move these small collet's about as it had a sharp point.


Once I had fitted the Heavy Duty Springs I fitted the heads to my engine block. The heads push onto the barrels and are bolted up to 35 lbs/ft or 3.2 mKgs depending on your torque ratchet. The Heavy Duty Valves are easily identified as the retainers are a different shape. Once I had the heads torqued up I realized I had forgotten to install the air deflectors under the barrels , these are very important and slot under the barrels. They cannot be fitted with the heads on so I had to remove the heads and refit them a good lesson learned her check they are fitted first. I then fitted my 1:2 bolt up rocker arms you can see they are very similar to the Scat Pro Rockers but do not have quite so much lift. I torqued these up to 18 lbs/ft ( torque settings) I had broken a stud in the past and new these must not be over tightened. I fitted the tine ware over the heads and refitted the fan housing and the Alternator. these are fairly simple jobs apart form ensuring your fan is running freely there is not much more to it than bolting the tin ware together and using the alternator strap to tighten up the alternator. I moved my strap bolt round to the side so it did not foul the linkage kit . I fitted the carburetors and linkage kit with new gaskets (most important). I then left the engine over night so that it could cool enough for the valves to be adjusted. I used my own procedure to adjust the valves.

I just had the electrics to reconnect and decided that it was in need of a little restorations. I had used some spiral wrap before and decided that I would use this to protect the loom . I would have to purchase this and would refit the electrics next time.

Refitting a Broken Valve Spring or not due to non delivery from CoolAir

21st July 2011
I got my cylinder head off yesterday that had the broken spring in it. The spring in two pieces along with the valve are shown in the picture opposite. The spring had sheered right through two coils down and the surfaces matched exactly. This is a fairly major failure in this part . I had thought I had used second hand heads but in fact these heads where 040 heads I had bought some years earlier for my engine. I decided to go to GSF and get a new inlet valve and luckily these where standard 35.6mm valve heads with an 8mm stem and strangely GSF had them in stock. It is a mystery to me what GSF stocks as they always only seem to have half of the parts I require for example yesterday morning i spend £68.00 on parts a Valve Compression tool and some valve springs. GSF could have had all of this but instead only had £10.00 for two collets and an inlet Valve . I have to wonder why this is but am happy that my local branch is expanding and they will have more stock room.

The Valve compression tool I bought was a bench mounted tool. which is very simple to use. You simply place the head on the base with the valves in and the arm runs along a track to alter its position to put a valve in in turn. with the spring and spring retainer on the valve the compression tool compresses the spring so that the two collets can be inserted. This was very straight forward and I was very impressed with it as a tool that actually does what it should do for a change.

I decided as I had the tool I would clean up the other valves in the heads before putting the head back on this involved removing each of the collets from the other valves and taking out the valve and cleaning it down with carburetor cleaner and a wire brush. The valves where then re fitted to the head one by one until the head was re assembled again . The head was then refitted to the engine. I new I would need to visit GSF again as I needed a new set of carburetor and exhaust gaskets. With the GSF High quality gasket set in hand I was waiting for a UPS delivery all morning to deliver my springs and tools. Sadly this was wasting my time so I decided to paint some of the tin wear back up with black to refresh it a little.

I got a phone call from CoolAir VW a little while later as I had called as was getting worried as nothing had arrived. They told me that nothing had been shipped out to me there had been a problem with an email not being sent and although apologetic I was told I would and could not have my parts today. This meant I could not get the car back together for bugJam.

I was so cross about this it started me thinking . I had an old valve spring compressor that was made by Laser this would not fit my beetle heads and without the proper equipment arriving I decided to try some customization of this item to see if I could do anything with it. You can see I used my angle grinder to remove to nicks from the very front of the tool so that it would not interfere with the lip on the cylinder head. I then filed it so that it had no rough burrs and was smooth and kind to the soft aluminum head. I found that the scissor action of the clamp was quite difficult yo use. I also found that when you had it clamped onto the head that you could not increase the pressure further by tightening the screw as the bottom of the screw just slid of the head of the valve. This was rather disappointing, however I soon found that if I tightened up the thread hard . I could not close the cramp but I could use a rubber mallet to hit the leaver to make it force the spring to compress. This was a good find as it pulled the spring up tights so that the collets could be removed. The image right shows the top of the tool and how close it is to the edge of the head even with the section removed from the jaws of the compression device. Without this removed the device could not compress the valve enough to allow the collets to be removed. This was obviously a flaw in the design. The collets were then removed and the apparatus was removed to allow the spring to be released. I took the spring and cleaned it up with a wire brush and then wd40. I then placed the new valve old spring and new collets into the head with the same process only i had to balance the device on the compressor before i could compress it this turned out to be considerable easier. The picture right shows the valve inserted in the head and the head pushed onto the cylinder heads. This was then bolted back on turning up the nuts in a diagonal pattern so that it pulled the head up evenly. The newly painted tin ware was then placed under the fan housing and then screwed down tightly. I then inserted the Alternator with the fan still on the back into the housing and strapped it down with the strap before doing up the tin ware screws in this way i could ensure that the fan spun without hitting the housing. I found i needed to pull it forward before doing up the strap to achieve this. When I had the alternator bolted in then I did up the tin ware screws. I then put the carburetors back on using new gaskets . I put the cross bar in whilst the carbs was loose this gave just enough room to get it in so they bolted up with it in place. Whilst I had the engine in bits i Changed my Distributor back to a VAC model and connected up the engine electrics and fuel eager to see if this had changed anything.

My Buggy Engine running .


The initial run was much smoother and the car ran better. I took the car out for a run

The initial Run


I returned finding that it would not idle when it was hot. I readjusted the idle screws to get it to idle and left the car in its garage to cool down for the evening. I was still very cross with CoolAir Vw they did appologise but I was very upset that they new I needed my parts to get to Bug Jam and there had obviously been a failure in their systems.