Hardened valve seats...how to tell?

[MagikDraggin]

Heh, heh, heh...great sense of humor you have there, Mr Biggs. I think I get the point Thanks

Karl <in Iowa>


1962 GT Hawk 4sp

[John Kirchhoff]

Hmmm, Mr. Biggs, were you being sarcastic??? Ha, love it! I tend to agree with you though, I think sometimes the additive market is a lot like the livestock feed business. The feed salesman is going to tell you that you need all that stuff he sells while his competition is going to tell you that you need his stuff instead.

As far as seat recession goes, maybe a person should do like I've done on my bike since it was new. Every time I checked the valve clearance, I'd write down the clearance for each one. As I racked up the miles, they all tightened up just a bit (double overhead cam, so they tighten with wear) but invariably some tightened up faster than others and it was always the same ones. Checking the valves on a Stude isn't that big of a deal, so if you're paranoid about it, just check them every couple thousand miles and write down the clearances. If you see a pattern of some tightening up while others don't or get looser, then maybe it't time to investigate further. Just don't jump to conclusions based on one valve adjustment but look at the results of several checks.

One bad thing about hardened seats is that you sure want someone who knows that they're doing to put them in. I've known of an engine or two where the seat came loose and destroyed the piston and head. I don't know if the seats actually came loose or they cracked and then came out, but either way, having a super hard seat jingling around the waist of the valve like a hula dancer sure ain't something you want!

[Roscomacaw]

Yes, very much with tongue-in-cheek was that whacked out on my keyboard. But I don't have much faith in "potions". And my lack of faith was reaffirmed when I tried vainly to patch Pete's cooling system with "Guaranteed!", pour in and go goop! What one won't resort to in desperation!

And John, I've read of such failures as well. I like the old rule of keeping it simple. 8 or 16 more pieces are not simplification.
OTOH, Mike does heads for money. Maybe his expertise trumps my years of Stude experience.
Local machine shops will ALWAYS argue with you over the worth of these seats as regards Studebakers. Since they maybe see one or two a decade (if that often!), they'd rather cover their warranty-liable butts (at your expense of course) given what they know from SBCs, SBFs and the like.

JDP, Dwain, Bob..... how often do you guys install seats or recommend such?

Miscreant adrift in
the BerStuda Triangle


1957 Transtar 1/2ton
1960 Larkvertible V8
1958 Provincial wagon
1953 Commander coupe

[bige]

I've been using the same machinist for 33 years now. We worked together at one of the parts stores I managed. He's done heads for me on 4 different makes of brand "X"'s in the past 10 years and recommended hardened seats on all...'til I brought him a pair of Stude heads that I bought fromm Steeltech that had R3 valves installed. I didn't like the look of the cut on the seats so I brought them to my guy to make them "nice". I told him to put hardened seats in while he was in there. When I picked up the heads he told me that he didn't feel I needed the seats and that the Stude head "felt" like it had hardened seats already. JK never had any problem spending my money as he know's that whatever he said I needed I would do no questions asked. Also the heads I took off had been on the car for about 7 years showed no signs of sinking valves. So, if the car is an occasional driver my opinion would be to save the money on the seats and install a new exhaust system.

ErnieR

[Roscomacaw]

This thread spurred my memory a bit and I remembered when: 1. I took a block in to have it bored .040 over. The guy that owned the shop quoted me a price. When I went back to pick it up, he apologized for the fact that my bill was more than he'd estimated. He told me that the block just couldn't be cut with the same sorta bite he usually used because the metal was just too tough.
In another instance - different shop - they didn't charge me more than the standard charge for the work they did, but the shop foreman commented that they'd been surprized at how resistant the material was to being cut. "What the heck's that thing made of?" he teased.[}]

Miscreant adrift in
the BerStuda Triangle


1957 Transtar 1/2ton
1960 Larkvertible V8
1958 Provincial wagon
1953 Commander coupe

[Chucks Stude]

I had a machinist tell me he would rather cut 6 sbc blocks, then another one of them *%#$ Studebakers.....

[Dick Steinkamp]

It's natural that we feel our Studebakers are "something special", but if you go over to the Pontiac forum...same thing. Oldsmobile guys love their cars too. We wouldn't be into Studebakers if we thought they were "average".

When it comes down to "facts", however, we often come up short. Plenty of anecdotal evidence (Uncle Harry drove his '51 Commander for 320,000 miles and didn't ever even have to change the oil).

We did a thread on the fabled "McKinnon" engines a while back. We wanted to believe they were not just small block Chevy's. Studebaker wouldn't stoop to install a small block Chevy in their cars! With the facts, they turned out to be just small block Chevys.

I owned a '65 Chevy with a 283 back in the day. Ran it for well over 200,000 miles and the motor wasn't using any oil between 3,000 mile changes when I traded it in on a new '71 Datsun. I bought a '88 GMC Safari van new...essentially 6/8ths of a small block Chevy. Drove it for 260,000 miles with no motor problems...not a water pump, or anything. Used no oil ever. With a couple of more stories about Small Block Chevy's from friends and relatives, I've soon got enough "facts" to claim these motors were indestructible.

It's OK to post anecdotes. Makes it an interesting and fun forum. Opinions are always important. But let's not claim these motors were made of "tougher" metal than anything else out there...had a higher nickel content (whatever "higher" means), etc. unless we can post some facts...not more anecdotes, but facts. Nickel content of a Stude V8 vs a Chevy V8 would be a good start...along with what more nickel means and does. Without the facts, we are about as bad as the ones we laugh at that say our cars have Ford 289's in them, are still made in Canada, and were serviced by Dodge dealers.

[Transtar60]

Dick you make some good points, but it would take a very large bank account, a very large number of full time technicians, and a large supply of test material(ie engine blocks, heads) to come up with an incontrevertible "book of facts".

We're all just doing the best we can, with the information and experience we have. And it is a Studebaker forum after all. [8D]


3E38
4E2
4E28
5E13
7E7
8E7
8E12
8E28
4E2
59 Lark
etc

[Roscomacaw]

Let's not write off personal experiences. Anecdotal tho they might be, I doubt there's been many instances where Stude V8s were torn down because their valve seats were/are eroding. It's one thing to say "Ohh - Ohh!! You gotta put hardened seats in unless you plan on driving Granny style to a local cruise once a month!"
That option is dumb given that you might wanna peddle the car later and if eroding valve seats were epidemic in nature, we'd wanna spend the extra bucks so that we could sell with confidence even if WE didn't need the insurance by virtue of our feather-foot ways of driving.
This whole argument is silly unless we start to hear of numbers of Studes having to be torn apart to fix the problem. There's the engine I took outta Pete last month. I had the valves done in '89 because one VALVE was burnt. It's gone for over a hundred thousand miles since that valve job (all those miles since the redo on unleaded gas I might add) without a problem attributed to the valves. Heh - in my less-than-strict maintenance "schedule", the valves got checked in '96 when I put new seals on them and maybe honestly ONCE since '96. T'aint broke, don't fix it!
I'm doubtful that the engine's recent lust for coolant is attributed to valve seat failure, 'course, I've yet to pull it apart 'cause I have too much else to do.

My whole point to all this is that we constantly carp about how terribly expensive it is to rehab an honest and truly great, REAL, Studebaker part - the engine. And yet wanna make it even MORE expensive to buy us little more than insurance. It's like I said about taking a garlic pill - or a daily vitamin, for that matter.
Figure $400 or more to effect this bit of insurance. But of course, it's your money.
Put a SBC or V6 in there! Much cheaper and you'll be the envy of the Saturday night crowd. It's only appearnces that count anyways. Or at least I though so the FIRST time I was married.[V]

Miscreant adrift in
the BerStuda Triangle


1957 Transtar 1/2ton
1960 Larkvertible V8
1958 Provincial wagon
1953 Commander coupe

[Dick Steinkamp]

quote:Originally posted by Transtar60
it would take a very large bank account, a very large number of full time technicians, and a large supply of test material(ie engine blocks, heads) to come up with an incontrevertible "book of facts".

Here's a start...

http://www.grapeaperacing.com/tech/engineblocks.pdf

On page 3 under "Research" it explains the "code" for small block Chevy's with added tin and/or nickel and explains the advantage of added nickel.

[Dwain G.]

I was asked by another forum member why I haven't put in my two cents worth on this subject yet. I'm not sure there is one definite answer. While there is no apparent epidemic of recessed valve seats,
there will always be heads/blocks that need new seats.
Originally, 'false' seats were used to restore proper valve height on a head or block that had been ground several times previously, or to cut out a heat crack in the valve seat area.
I would want a guarantee that the seat(s) was never going to come loose!
As to Studebaker block/head hardness and alloy composition, I imagine that it probably varied somewhat in a mass production environment.



Dwain G.

[1956 Hawk]

Just a thought here, but if all it took to run unleaded gas was to add more nickel, don't you think that's what the big three would be doing on their heads?
I have one engine right now that needs to have hardened seats installed. The inside exhaust valves (3,5,4,6) have recessed about 1/8". I have also seen this on several other Studebaker heads. So I know it can be a problem.
From what I have figured out from talking to the experts is that it's not so much that Studebaker heads don't need hardened seats it's that there isn't enough material to safely install hardened seats. Of course I have put hardened seats in several heads without any problems, but considering how much core shift there is I could see how you might cut into a water passage putting them in.
David

[Tom Bredehoft]

Speaking of anecdotal incidents, at SB in 02, Carl Thoms related that before driving to SB in an early year in their '51 Land Cruiser, they had ground one exhaust valve seat because it was leaking. All the other valve seats were good and had a coating of 'stuff' on them, probably containing lead. As they approached the mid west, they had to adjust that one exhaust valve. Before they got back to the coast, it needed adjustment again, finally sinking into the head nearly a quarter inch. His conclusion was that if the seats were well coated with the stuff that came from lead in gas, they would continue to be lubricated, but new seats would erode.

[img=left]http://www.alink.com/personal/tbredehoft/Bothcars.jpg[/img=left]
Tom Bredehoft
'53 Commander Coupe
'60 Lark VI
'05 Legacy Ltd Wagon
All three Indiana built OD cars

[John Kirchhoff]

Interesting website, Dick. I know this doesn't have anything to do with Studes, but it is on the nickel subject. In the mid-late '70s BMW stopped using cast iron cylinder liners in their air cooled (motorcycle) aluminum cylinder blocks in favor of a process called Nickelsil (I think I spelled that correctly). They claimed the electrolitic action between the aluminum and cast iron caused a reduction in heat transfer between the two. Anyone familiar with the '70s all aluminum Chevy Vega or throw away Briggs & Stratton lawn mower engine knows that aluminum has really poor wear characteristics. The Nicklesil process consisted of spraying a molten layer of nickle onto the aluminum cylinder wich resulted in a light weight cylinder with good heat transfer and wear characteristics. The only problem was that when they did wear or got skinned up, you tossed them because boring them removed the paper thin layer of nickle. I could be wrong, but I believe they stopped using that process a good while back or at least I haven't heard it mentioned for a mighty long time.