Fort Worth TX - 426 Hemi Valve Seal Replacement

Any recommendations on a reputable mechanic in Fort Worth area that can replace valve seals on a 426 hemi. Prefer old Mopar savvy mechanic that is familiar with Hemi.

Thanks!

Sorry, most of the metroplex Mopar guys I know are wedge guys, but if you want the number of a guy who I trust and who did my machine work for 20+ years just let me know and I'll see if he's interested in HEMI work. I'm assuming they are original type iron heads?

If you want to bring it up to the Tulsa area this guy does lots of hemi and Mopar stuff. Wayne Smothers http://www.smotherssupercars.com

Looking for a old school hemi mechanic is not as easy as it used to be . Lol. They’re all dying off. I’ve got several guys that bring there cars to me all the way to Abilene from the Dallas area. I’ve worked on Hemis but I’ve never tried to change the valve seals on one in the car. It may be hard to change out the exhaust seal with the proximity to the inner fender and angle of the valve. Depends upon the spring pressure as well. My tool may be tool tall to get in there. I don’t have a hemi car in the shop to look at to measure. The problem I run into on these cars now days is that a customer brings in a car for something simple and because of the previous work of another person, there are way more things wrong than initially thought. There are some real hacks out there. Throw in just the age and mileage on the car and you have a drawn out project. These cars weren’t that well engineered in the first place and things go wrong.

What makes you think you need valve seals? Smoking when you first crank it up or can you see pieces of them laying in the head?

Slight blue smoke one tailpipe at start, runs clean otherwise. Wary of letting someone inexperienced getting in there and causing additional issues.

On a Hemi I doubt that is caused by valve seals, BUT I could be wrong.

I'm not going to swear it's valve seals. But if it is, it's an easy fix. If the engine is not too old, and was well put together, I wouldn't do it in the car. It's pretty easy. You just take off the heads, replace the seals, and put the heads back on. I've done it, and been done before noon.

I would do a leak down test first before I just started replacing stuff.

I thought valve seals were when it smokes when you let off the gas.

You wanting to do this with the heads still on the engine? If so, very few people have a tool to do that.

Had one (customer) just this week that fit your commentary to a T. He had the car flat bedded in from another local shop. He had taken it to them for a flat spot in the carb. After 3 attempts he couldn't even make if 4 blocks without severely overheating and the flat spot was still there. We corrected those issues and several others.Also We had well over 40 hours in it and he whines about the bill (2400.00). If I hadn't been so detailed about the issues we found and the repairs we made I would have put it back exactly the way it was and told him to pick it up.

My Street Hemi had the OP symptoms after a rebuild.
Found some high-temp silicone umbrella-type seals from SilverSeal in MI, installed them with the motor & heads in the car, cured.
Yup, not a walk in the park; got a valve-spring tool from Landy, and reconfigured it to work in the car.


$60/hour for mech labor? That's cheap!

ho ya

got one last week for a cam change , block an heads are at the machine shop now !

owner said 14,000 miles on rebuild !

I’ve got two 440’s in just like that. One bud bought a 69 4 speed car that had a cast crank motor rebuilt and a neutral balance flywheel on it. Of coarse it had a bad vibration. Pulled it apart to try and change the crank and it just needed too much work. We’re going to start over with a better build instead of fixing this one. The other cam in for a cam change. That motor had very cheap cast pistons installed too tight, rods backwards, heads done wrong. I don’t remember there being so many hacks out there years ago.

I think the guy is just a tight --s wanting something for nothing. I really wish i could put the car back to what it was when it came in. But that's not possible at this point.

You might call Tony Cowell in Hudson Oaks a call if you haven't found someone. He is a SS racer and works on several Stocker drag cars, street rods, hot rods, etc. (817) 341-1602

Yes on intake valves then !