I struggled with making a valve spring compressor -
- with a lever arm to depress the springs and one day pondering life i realized that I wasted the entire previous day and quickly whipped this up and got the valves out in about an hour.
For clarity, THIS is what we are trying to accomplish here...
left to right in the order they come out: Lifter, Keepers, Retainer, springs
The lifters just come right out with a magnet granted the cam shaft is no longer there.
Toolshack saw or better yet a dremel tool
bicycle seat post (or an aluminum tube of similar ID and OD. I used a bike post of a ruined seat)
a sturdy table top for the head to sit on
a C clamp large enough to clamp the head to the table from it's highest point + a couple inches (a framing clamp works very well for this as it is so long)
needle nose pliers or a magnet or a magnetic screw driver (I found magnetic screw driver was the easiest)
I used the magnet out of a broken screw driver on the end of a bit.
Cut the pipe like so... The gap is, if you haven't guessed by now, to grab the keepers off the valves.
You can't make it much shorter [mine is exactly 3 inches tall. 3 1/4 would be better if your clamp is large enough] as the whole thing will depress into the head as you compress it down with the C clamp.
Be sure to secure the head to the table with more clamps if you got em!
The good thing about this method is that the aluminum pipe will never damage the retainers that hold the keepers and if you choose to use a magnet to remove the keepers you won't be fighting with the magnet to not grab the aluminum pipe.
The only real downside to this method is that the head HAS to be on a table.
Here was mine when i put new valves in this new head and removed valves from my old head.
I unfortunately don't have any pictures of me actually doing it as i thought it was pretty straight forward at the time.
But I'm confident you're all bright enough to imagine how this idea works.
Here is a picture of me trying to use a conventional spring compressor to no avail
If this helps at least ONE person I'll be happy I spent the time taking the pictures and writing this up. :roll:
PS, I'd make the cut away in the post larger at the top. I widened mine after that picture was taken so that the cut out looks like an hour glass.