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1G Tell tail sign your valves aren’t seated properly

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AWD-Tony

Proven Member
6,801
3,735
Sep 11, 2017
Cincinnati, Ohio
I bought my car October of 2017. It had its normal issues and one was that it would need a few extra cranks when starting cold. Warmed up it was fine. I decided to refreshed the head recently and found 3 intake and all exhaust valves weren’t fully seated. Compression and leak down test will point you in the right direction but not all of us have access to these tools. After refreshing the head, these were all corrected.

-Longer crank on cold start
-Oil smells like fuel
-Loss of oil - I was losing 1qt every 1000-1500 miles of mixed driving with no visible smoke
-Could never get the car to idle at 14.7 no matter what I adjusted in link. Closest I got was 15.2
 
Last edited:
Oh wow, this is actually exactly what I had before I did my rebuild and never figured it out! I also had oil turning darker than usual very quickly, it smelled as if it was getting mixed with fuel, very slight oil loss and longer cranks when cold. After seating and lapping the valves all these issues have gone away.

You're right that in general, a compression test will tell you if you've got a leak. However it could also leak through worn piston rings. Either way, good tips!
 
Oh wow, this is actually exactly what I had before I did my rebuild and never figured it out! I also had oil turning darker than usual very quickly, it smelled as if it was getting mixed with fuel, very slight oil loss and longer cranks when cold. After seating and lapping the valves all these issues have gone away.

You're right that in general, a compression test will tell you if you've got a leak. However it could also leak through worn piston rings. Either way, good tips!

It definitely can and I don't doubt that my rings are worn too. Tested my compression the other day cold and dry and it's 120 across the board so bottom end rebuild is definitely in the future.
 
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