fitting valve guides

[spitfire4v8]

Have any of you enterprising home modifiers replaced valve guides? The official line is heat the heads to 65C which might be a problem. Am I just better off handing it over to an engineering firm that does this kind of thing, or is it perfectly possible to do it yourself? Sardonicus .. maybe one for you?
Process sems to be, heat head, press in guides to depth, leave heads to air cool slowly. ream guides. cut seats .
I'm happy with everything except the heating the heads bit ..

[Andy_mr2sc]

When I've rebuilt gearboxes etc I've just used a domestic oven on a low heat to make the bearing, case, etc expand. I used this method the other day to put early 911 starter ring gear off the old and on to the new clutch cover.
I guess the only draw back is you will need to find a large oven to get an S6 head in it!

[spitfire4v8]

Should have said it's a pair of rover heads I've ported. The guides are out so I need to fit new .. cheers for the reply.

[steveo3002]

warm head in wives oven ..freeze the guides overnight?

[Andy_mr2sc]

spitfire4v8 said:

Should have said it's a pair of rover heads I've ported. The guides are out so I need to fit new .. cheers for the reply.

They should fit in a standard oven ok then. As said above it's just the other half you'll need to convince!

[Bassfiend229hp]

Andy_mr2sc said:

spitfire4v8 said:

Should have said it's a pair of rover heads I've ported. The guides are out so I need to fit new .. cheers for the reply

They should fit in a standard oven ok then. As said above it's just the other half you'll need to convince!

Throw it in with a casserole and she'll never notice...

[Pupp]

Not trying to put you off but the one time I've tried it (on an 8 valve air cooled bike engine), pretty much all the guides started walking about fairly quickly after being rebuilt and run. It may be the particular guides I used, which were some unusual material supposed to be much less wear prone than regular phosphor bronze, were just not sized properly but, for whatever reason, I ended up getting another set made and dropped in. Proved to be an expensive exercise after the seats were replaced to accommodate the multi-angle cut I wanted not to say the work involved in re-facing the valves (that I'd tipped a couple by running too little P/V clearance didn't help either)... I'd give it to a trusted pro if they're good heads

It'll save the domestic grief too!